


when you weren't mine to lose

by wrongwayco



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Identity Reveal, Adrinette, Akumatized Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Angst - this is gonna be a whole mess, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Grief/Mourning, LadyNoir - Freeform, Marichat, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Identity Reveal, Miraculous Ladybug Love Square, Post Season 3 and New York, Temporary Character Death, The kids are going to get their love and fluff but they are gonna Hurt first, Time Travel, but I'll fix it at the end no worries, ladrien, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28737681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrongwayco/pseuds/wrongwayco
Summary: Change is a scary thing, especially when it feels like nothing has stayed the same.It's been a year since Marinette became the Guardian of the Miracle Box - a year of struggling beneath a burden she never asked for, a weight that has her leaning on her partner more and more as the hours fly by, of letting him come to her, too, when he needs a soft place to land. A year of falling for the boy who takes on the world by her side with a smile made of sunlight, and fighting the growing urge to tell him what he means to her.After all, they'll have time enough for that when Paris is safe.But when the unthinkable happens, Marinette learns the tragedy of loving someone quietly, and the lines she'll cross to save him.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 152
Kudos: 299





	1. [when I was living for the hope of it all]

**Author's Note:**

> After months of daydreaming, I finally caved and started writing this disaster of a self-indulgent sad fest. The Miraculous Lovesquare has taken over my brain and I couldn't be happier for it, so logically my response is to write angst.
> 
> Thanks to the lovely emsylcatac for checking out this first chapter for me and hyping me up enough to actually write the rest.

The passage of time can be a funny thing.

As Ladybug touched down onto the roof of the apartment that once belonged to one Wang Fu, she thought of how, for every one thing that withstood the hours, another would inevitably change.

There were the facts of Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s life that even passing years couldn’t seem to touch: akumas, for one, rampant and undeterred in the onslaught to claim what Hawkmoth wanted but could never be allowed to have; just as there was the presence of Chat Noir only one step behind, landing in a crouch at her side with a smile made of sunbeams. The rooftops they haunted to keep Paris safe remained more or less unchanged, as did the weight that never left Ladybug’s tired shoulders, and the deepening cracks in a heart that loved too much and too many. There were designs in need of sewing and stacks of homework to get through and secrets to keep, and only so many hours in the day. 

But when Ladybug looked back on the year that had passed, it felt like everything had changed. That _t_ _oo much_ had. 

Over the summer, Marinette had turned sixteen. She had a red-spotted box buried in her room that carried more responsibility than she knew what to do with. She was split down the middle and slowly coming apart at the seams.

Ladybug takes a deep breath in through her nose, holding it a moment before letting it go. She’d fix it. She always did.

Behind her, Chat Noir huffs. His clawed fingers are tangled hopelessly in the string of her yoyo, and the look on his face is one of such intense concentration that she almost laughs. Instead, she looks away, nose scrunching.

If there’s one change that’s been slowly driving her to distraction, it’s this: _when_ had Chat Noir gotten so tall? And when had she begun to notice?

“That’s not meant to be a toy, Chat,” she reminds him, though the reprimand is nowhere near stern. 

Undeterred, Chat comes to join her at the edge of the roof, his smile bright. “Look, bug. It’s the Eiffel Tower.”

She looks, and the corner of her mouth twitches into a reluctant grin. He has, indeed, twisted the string into something resembling the tower between his hands. 

“Good job, kitty. Now give it back before you knot it.”

He stretches, the long line of his spine a graceful curve, before depositing the yoyo back into her waiting palm. He scans the horizon, one hand at his brow to block the setting sun. “Did you see the Ladyblog last night? I didn’t know Alya jumped in _that_ close to get that shot.” 

Ladybug sighs. She was the one who’d swung in to snatch her friend out of harm’s way. “She’s going to get hurt one of these days.” 

“I think she might be immortal,” Chat whispers, as though he’s uncovered a secret. Ladybug snorts, and he grins at the sound before continuing, “she’s something, anyway.” 

The way he says it is fond and familiar, not so unlike how Marinette would sound, were she the one talking about Alya. She glances at him, quick and considering, before deciding it best to let that train of thought go. It steps a bit too close into dangerous territory.

“She _is_ something. I guess after nearly being dunked into the Seine in a mummy’s coffin, nothing can really scare her,” Ladybug muses. “I envy her a bit for that.”

She hadn’t meant to let that last thought slip. 

Chat turns to face her. “You envy Alya nearly being drowned in the Seine?” 

A laugh tumbles out of her. She lets her feet swing back and forth and watches them instead of him. “No, silly. The ‘nothing can scare her’ part.” 

There’s a pause where all she can hear is the sounds of the city below and his even breaths. He doesn’t make light of it like maybe he would have, once. It’s only another sure mark of how things have changed: they’ve both seen too much to keep up any pretense of being fearless. 

“What’s scaring you, LB?” 

When she chances a look up at him, the fading light has lent a halo to his golden hair. His smile has softened into something open, endlessly patient. He’d take her word or accept her silence. 

It had never really mattered to her that Chat Noir was beautiful, before. Lately, though, his quicksilver grins had her turning away before he could see the heat coloring her cheeks. The raw, unfiltered sincerity in his gaze set her heart pounding. He was always _there,_ at Ladybug’s side or on Marinette’s terrace, his laugh a song in her ears, his touch a ghost on her skin. 

His friendship meant everything to her. Maybe one day she’d be able to tell him. 

He catches her looking and his expression turns serious, green eyes intent on hers. Ladybug’s quick inhale gets caught somewhere on the way to her lungs, and she remembers he’d asked her a question. 

“Nothing really, kitty.” _Too much. Everything._ “Don’t worry about it.”

There’s something sharp in his eyes as he nods. He knows she’s lying, just as well as he knows he can’t press, not really. His hand goes to the back of his neck and his gaze darts away. “If you’re sure.” 

She tries on a smile. “I am.” 

He stays quiet for a moment, nothing between them but the breeze before he speaks again, his voice sheepish. “So I’ve been meaning to ask you something, but I...I don’t want to make you mad.” 

Ladybug bumps her shoulder against his. “You can ask me anything. Well,” she hastily amends, _“almost_ anything.” 

Chat’s smile doesn’t make it to his eyes. He fidgets in place next to her, picking at a crack in the cement. “Okay, hear me out. I’ve been thinking, with Master Fu gone, no one knows us. It’s been a year and we’re nowhere closer to figuring out who Hawkmoth is. I know sharing our identities has always been dangerous, but…” his brow furrows behind his mask. “Isn’t it a little dangerous for _no one_ at all to know?”

Ladybug drops her gaze to the streets below, lips pressed into a taut line. She’d be lying to him if she said the same question hadn’t plagued her for months. She lost hours at night, lying awake and wondering _what if._

Should the worst happen to them, not a single soul would know what had become of Marinette Dupain-Cheng. The boy behind Chat Noir’s mask could disappear, and she wouldn’t even know where to look. No one would.

“I’ve thought about it, too,” she admits, her voice low. Chat’s ears perk, and she holds a hand up as if to halt his enthusiasm in its tracks. “I _have,_ but...it’s a lot. I’m not saying no,” she assures him, “Just...not today.” 

Chat picks up her hand and Ladybug jumps, just a little. She watches, silent, as Chat brings her knuckles up to his lips, a faint, careful memory of a kiss, before releasing her fingers.

It’s been months since his casual overtures of affection had all but stopped. She wants to snatch his hand back as it withdraws and hold on, for just a moment more.

“Whenever you’re ready, my lady,” he says. “And if you decide you don’t want me to know your name, I would still be willing to tell you mine.” 

Their eyes catch and hold in the dark. His offer is a tempting one. He’d give everything he had to her, she knows, without expecting anything in return. 

_It’s precisely when something is important, that it's important to say it, no matter what._

It hits her then, in a punch to the chest that steals her breath, just how much she’d like to lean in, close the chasm between them, and kiss him. But if there’s one more thing time hasn’t touched, it’s the same fear that snaps at her heels whenever she tries to take a step.

Instead, Ladybug jumps to her feet, yoyo in hand. “I-I’ll think on it, _Chaton._ There’s pros and cons either way, and it’s a big decision to make, and I—”

He stands up more slowly as she stammers, his smile soft and just a little sad. Her voice dies in her throat. “I know, bug. Just remember you don’t have to do it all alone. I’m here for you, you know?”

She _did_ know. It was the one, unassailable truth of her life—Chat was by her side, ready to lighten her burden whenever he could, whenever she’d let him. 

Ladybug steps forward, catching the slight widening of his eyes as she rises on her toes to slide her arms around his neck. She tucks her nose into the curve of his collarbone, where he smells like sunshine and leather and something like home.

She feels his breath hitch in his chest before he bands his arms around her waist and pulls her in closer still. His heart pounds against hers, a harmony she knows better than most.

Chat turns his cheek into her hair, his breath warm as it ghosts over her ear. “What’s this for?” he murmurs, but she can hear the smile in his words. 

_For everything I can’t say,_ Ladybug thinks, and squeezes him just a little tighter. For burrowing his way under her skin, for melting into the marrow of her bones, flooding her veins and drowning her heart, until he grew into something vital she’s not sure she could live without.

She should tell him she loves him, that she always had, but the words felt heavier than they might have once.

 _Tomorrow._ Ladybug takes a deep breath before releasing him and stepping back to solid ground. _There was always tomorrow_. 

When she glances up, she catches a flash of _something_ in his eyes, confused or curious or both. It was getting dangerous, how well he could read her.

“Goodnight, Chat Noir,” she says, the words soft.

He watches her, measuring, before letting the moment pass by unremarked. Her stomach flips, a dizzying blend of relief and disappointment. “Goodnight, my lady,” he murmurs. “See you tomorrow.”

Ladybug stays and watches him go, a black blur vaulting away until the dark claims him completely. “I have time,” she whispers to the wind and turns for home.

After all, there would always be tomorrow. 

* * *

* * *

  
  
Hours later, when a tell-tale tapping on her window draws her attention to glowing green eyes in the dark, Marinette wonders if the world is desperately trying to tell her something.

She sets her phone and the Ladyblog aside and rises to her knees, opens the terrace hatch, and lets the night inside. Chat Noir drops in and lands in a crouch on her mattress, stark black against the pink of her bedding. The smile he offers her is a convincing one, well-practiced and charming, but she knows him better. 

“Did I wake you?”

‘No, minou,” Marinette assures him, shifting back into her nest of pillows. “It _is_ getting late, though.” 

It’s a statement and an invitation in one. They’ve developed a sort of shorthand since the first time he stumbled onto her balcony, broken and so lonely she ached from only the echoes of it. She can say so much in so few words, and he can hear the meaning that hides in between her breaths.

He hesitates, uncertain and almost shy in a way that never fails to find her smile and bring it to the light. She pats the bed beside her and lifts the blanket. His own smile turns a little less brittle and he crawls over to settle in at her side, warm despite the chill he brought in with him. 

Chat burrows under the covers before dropping his chin onto her shoulder. His wild hair is downy soft against her cheek. “What are we watching?”

She sifts her fingers through the hair at the back of his head and he melts into her touch like a starving stray. Like always, it cracks her heart. 

She’s learned her partner hurts, sometimes. She doesn’t know why, but she wonders, as she wonders how she never really saw it before. He has so many fragile fault lines running beneath boundless bravado and spirited humor, and though he tries not to show it to Ladybug, whatever it was the led him to Marinette’s terrace keeps him visiting more and more, restless and wounded, something unspoken clawing beneath his skin.

Marinette knows she probably shouldn’t have let him in, logistically speaking, and she certainly shouldn’t let him stay. She has her secrets to keep and he has his, and their little slumber parties have just become another. It’s asking for trouble, she _knows._

But he’s her best friend. If there’s a tempest that chases him away from his home and out into the night, if it’s all she can do, she’ll be his port in the storm.

“Ladybug and Chat Noir take on Mr. Pigeon, round...what? Fifty-four?” Marinette murmurs. She feels a groan rumble out of his chest, transforming into a quiet laugh. 

“Come on. All of Paris has to be sick of that fight by now.” 

In the glow of her screen, Marinette smiles. “Oh, definitely. But I could never deprive Alya of her well-deserved page views.”

Chat shifts around to look at her, his sharp grin softening into something warm that sets loose a swarm in her belly. “You’re a good friend, Marinette.” 

She bites back a sigh. A better friend might tell him the truth: that she’s not entirely who he thinks she is, that she knows him better than she ought to. That she knows he hides what hurts.

Then again, she keeps her scars to herself, too.

Marinette flicks the bell at his throat. The light tinkling of it cuts through the quiet. “Yeah, yeah. You only say that because I take you in and give you pastries.” 

“No,” he objects immediately, his expression serious. “Well, maybe a _little,_ but it’s not the only reason.” 

She sinks deeper into her pillows, smiling all the while. Her hip lines up to Chat’s, soft cotton against battered leather. They lay side by side - thigh to thigh, knee to knee. It’s no different than sleepovers with Alya, except that it _absolutely is._ She doesn’t have to ask if he’s staying, and somewhere along the way, he stopped asking if he should go. 

“Bedtime, minou,” she mumbles. 

Chat leans down into his pillow. He faces her with bright eyes searching hers for something that, one day, Marinette is scared he’ll find.

“Goodnight, Marinette.”

_Goodnight, my lady._

Marinette shuts her eyes. _Tomorrow,_ she swears. _Tomorrow._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! drop a comment or a kudos if you like, and you can find me @bugsandchatons on tumblr. See you next time


	2. [for me, it was enough]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for starters, I am bLOWN AWAY by the reaction to the first chapter. You guys are amazing and I appreciate you so much. I hope you enjoy this next part too, just a bit of calm before the storm.

When faint, barely-there morning light filters in through the slatted blinds and sneaks in from the skylight overhead, Marinette blinks awake to a solid warmth at her back and an arm slung over her hips. A _bare_ arm, no leather gloves in sight. 

Marinette sighs. It’s happened again.

She keeps her eyes forward - ignoring both the press of his uncovered palm to her skin and the static prickle of awareness that follows his unconscious touch - and finds what she’s searching for in a little black blur, curled up around Tikki at the furthest edge of the pillow. He might even be snoring.

“Plagg,” she hisses. _“Plagg._ Claws out.” 

He yawns with a luxurious and unconcerned stretch. “Hmmm. No.” 

Marinette reaches out and pokes him. “Get him out of here.”

Plagg groans and opens one slitted, bleary eye. “When are you going to put us all out of our misery and tell him, Pigtails?” Tikki tries to shush him but he only hums, thoroughly unrepentant. “Oh, just _think_ of all the extra sleep we’ll get then!” 

When would she tell him? Marinette bites down on her lower lip. _The weekend, maybe. Next week, absolutely._ The perfect moment had to come eventually.

At her telling silence, Plagg sighs, loud and dramatic. He ignores both Marinette and Tikki’s protests for him to be quieter. “Fine, fine.” He floats off the pillow, waving one small paw. “You know the drill, ladies.” 

Tikki zips out of sight as Marinette drops her head back onto her pillow, takes a deep breath, and feigns an award-worthy sleep.

Right behind her, Plagg murmurs to Chat - _no,_ the boy who wears Chat Noir’s mask, the boy whose arms she sleeps in several times a week but whose uncovered face she’s never seen. She feels him stir against her back, hears his flustered stammering as snatches his rogue hand back and he pulls away. The green flash of his transformation stains the back of her eyelids. Then, Chat’s clawed fingers brush her hair off of her cheek, so softly she could almost pretend it was part of a dream. He rises, carefully tucking the blanket back into his vacated place.

They’re playing with fire, she knows. Most mornings, Chat is gone before she wakes - Marinette can’t imagine how he hasn’t spotted Tikki yet - but the days she has to kick Plagg into gear are surely the most dangerous; Chat is _right there,_ sleeping against her back, and all it would take is a stray glance. Just an accident and everything they’ve fought to keep in the dark would unravel.

They should have stopped months ago, and yet…

“See you later, Marinette,” Chat whispers. The affection there, the _gratitude,_ makes her heart ache. It’s why she can’t turn him away, why she can’t call it quits.

The mattress shifts with his weight, the terrace hatch creaks, and then he’s gone.

With a heavy sigh and something raging in her stomach she can’t find a name for, Marinette rolls over and checks her phone. She doesn’t have to be up for school for at least an hour. She lets her eyes fall closed as she sinks back into the pillows and pulls close one in particular; the one that carries the faintest trace of sunshine, like the boy she knows best. If not by name, then at least by heart.

* * *

An hour and a half later find Marinette in a mad dash from her closet to her desk, with a shoe in hand that doesn’t match the one already on her left foot. Tikki chases after her with a hair ribbon. 

“Have you seen my other shoe?” Marinette drops to her knees to scan under the desk. Her school bag greets her, gaping open and spilling contents onto the floor. She huffs and pushes her hair out of her face. _One problem at a time._

“Hold still,” Tikki says, before zipping around one of Marinette’s wild pigtails, looping the ribbon somewhat haphazardly through her hair. Satisfied, she points. “Now, check under the chase.” 

“Thank you,” Marinette gasps, making a dive for the correct ballet flat before reaching back to pull the ribbon tight. “What would I do without you?”

Tikki only smiles. “The _time,_ Marinette!”

Marinette groans. “I’m so late.”

“If you had gotten out of bed when Chat Noir left, you would have had plenty of time.” Tikki’s observation pulls Marinette to a halt, frozen while precious seconds slip away.

“I...I can’t get up when he goes,” she argues, knowing even as the words leave her that they make very little sense. Tikki gives her a skeptical look, and Marinette can’t even attempt to start finding words to explain.

The picture comes to mind of what it would be like, rising when Chat does. Of him and her together, rolling out of bed and preparing for the day ahead, of shared glances and shy smiles, gentle teasing, and sleepy affection. Fingers in her hair and kisses pressed to cheeks in goodbye. The scene is so unbearably intimate, somehow even more so than going to sleep to the sound of his slowing breaths. It would, undoubtedly, take them across the still-somehow-platonic borderline they’ve been hovering on for months and dump them solidly into uncharted territory.

No, it’s safer to prevent the opportunity from arising at all. The simple truth of it is this: if she falls back into sleep after Chat Noir leaves, it keeps him caught somewhere firmly between sleeping and waking, a dream she can tuck away when daylight comes.

Marinette frowns, patting her hands to her suddenly too warm face. Tikki gives in first, breaking the standoff and bumping sweetly into Marinette’s cheek before diving into her purse. “Come on Marinette, let’s go!”

In what might be considered record timing, Marinette scoops up her school bag and books and dashes out the door and down the stairs. She skids past her mother with a hasty goodbye and out into the front of the bakery, past her papa as he organizes a package for a customer. He calls out a quick, ‘Slow down, Marinette!’

As soon as she glances over her shoulder to reassure him, she runs straight into something solid, something that grunts on impact.

 _“Oof._ Oh, hey Marinette.” Adrien’s hands come up to cup her elbows, always catching her before she can fall.

 _Of all the boys and bakeries in Paris, he walks into mine._ Marinette scrambles backward, her face flaming. “Adrien,” she gasps. His hands fall away from her. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t - what are you doing here?”

His cheeks redden and for a moment, Marinette stares. He seemed almost flustered by her question, but _Adrien_ being flustered by _her_ is a ridiculous, impossible thing.

“Not that you can’t be here!” She hurries to add. “It’s a public place! It’s just - this isn’t school! And you’re supposed to be there, not here, and I’m late, which means _you’re_ late, and…” she trails off with a hopeless flail of hands.

Adrien watches her outburst with the beginnings of a smile. “I’m going to miss our first class, but I should make it to school later. My cousin is arriving today for a visit and Father is letting me go with Nathalie to meet Félix's train."

Papa steps up behind and passes Adrien a box of pastries over Marinette’s head, accepting his thanks with a grin. He claps a massive hand down onto her shoulder, making her jump. “Marinette, you’re going to be late!”

Before she can open her mouth, Adrien speaks up. “We could give you a ride. The car’s waiting just outside.” 

“I-” Marinette hesitates. Papa simply steers her towards the door and out onto the sidewalk. 

“Thanks so much, Adrien! What a good friend you have here, honey,” he adds to his daughter, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Have a good day!”

As she’s all but shooed to the car with Adrien, Marinette takes a breath and reminds herself that’s exactly what they are. Friends. _Good_ friends, even. That was enough. 

Adrien, she’d come to learn, was like the sun in the sky. Endlessly warm, bright, and _oh,_ so easy to love - but far away and forever out of reach. She could only drift so close before she burned. 

The front passenger window rolls down and Nathalie nails them both with a look more severe than Marinette has seen on akumatized villains. Adrien meets it, unfazed, as though he’s slain monsters far worse. “Marinette’s running late and we’re passing the school anyway, right?” 

There’s a beat of silence, a twist of Nathalie’s lips, but she nods once and disappears back behind tinted glass. Adrien offers Marinette a radiant smile and opens the car door for her. She reflects it back at him and climbs inside, mercilessly snuffing out the flutters in her chest as she goes.

He slides in beside her and as the car starts moving, he fidgets - adjusting his seatbelt, drumming his fingers on the bakery box, or reaching up to fiddle with his hair. She stares, certain she’s never seen him so unsettled before.

“Are you okay?” Marinette asks. He jumps, just a little.

“Oh, yeah.” He puts on his front-page cover smile. “A bit nervous, I guess.” At her silence and raised brows, Adrien gives in. “Well, last time Félix visited, he deleted the messages you guys sent to me, then pretended to _be_ me and got our friends akumatized.” 

Marinette looks down at her school bag and picks at the zipper teeth with her thumbnail. She remembers all too well - it was her last real attempt to confess her feelings for him before deciding maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. After all, the one time she’d found a way to shape the words, they’d never made it to his ears. 

But being Adrien’s friend was enough. She was _lucky._ He had so much fondness to hand out he practically burst at the seams with it, and stepping out of the shadows of hiding from him and into the light of his high esteem was a lovely, wonderful thing.

“I just hope he doesn’t cause trouble this time around,” Adrien adds in the face of her silence, his hand going up to scratch at the back of his neck.

Marinette offers him a sheepish smile. “Well...he can’t do much worse now than he did last time, right?” 

Adrien blinks and laughs, unbridled and free, like she’d startled the sound from his chest. “Yeah, I hope you’re right.”

When the car comes to a stop outside Françoise Dupont and Adrien’s bodyguard gets out to open the door for her, Adrien turns to face her. “I’ll see you later, okay?” 

“I’ll take notes for you,” she offers.

He gives her _that_ smile - the one so soft it melts her defenses away to nothing. “Thanks, Marinette. You - you’re, ah. A good friend.” 

She barely registers the sting of it these days. If anything, this time the words bring with them a flicker of recognition, a hint of _something_ that flirts with her memories and dances just out of reach. She makes it out of the car and halfway up the steps before glancing back, watching Adrien’s car as it turns the corner and leaves her sight.

Tikki zips up from Marinette’s purse to her shoulder, taking shelter behind her hair. “You okay, Marinette?”

She sighs. “I just...sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Tikki.”

Tikki offers a sympathetic hum. “About what?”

Marinette waves a dramatic hand in the direction Adrien disappeared in. “I mean...there’s Adrien. And most of the time, I think I’m just fine, but then he smiles at me, and I…” she trails off, chewing on her lower lip. “But then there’s Chat.”

 _Then there’s Chat._ Those words could define her life. He was an ever-present shadow, woven into her heart in a knotted mess she had no idea where to start untangling.

Tikki stays quiet for a second before saying, “I think it’s okay to love them both, Marinette. If there’s anything I’ve learned about humans, it’s that you have such an endless capacity for loving, and I think that’s beautiful. Can that ever truly be a bad thing?”

_It was our love that did this to the world, my lady._

The memory comes to her as it often does, unbidden and with force enough to steal her breath. Marinette shakes her head fiercely, as though the nightmare itself could be so easily dispelled. “Maybe it could be,” she whispers. “Chat Blanc-”

“Might never happen again,” Tikki interrupts, her little voice firm. “That was just one possibility out of hundreds - thousands, even. The future isn’t set in stone, any little thing could change it. So letting your fear stop you from telling someone you love them...that’s letting Hawkmoth have control. And who knows,” Tikki adds, brightening, “if you and Chat Noir do share your identities, it might make things-”

“There you are, girl!”

“Alya!” Marinette squeaks. She swipes a hand through her hair, scoops Tikki into her palm in a move she hopes is inconspicuous, and lets her escape back inside her purse. “Hey!”

“With just a minute to spare,” Alya teases, looking up from the time on her phone as she falls into step with Marinette and leads the way into the classroom. “Guess what? I think I’ve almost managed to convince Carapace to give me an interview for the blog!”

From the corner of her eye, Marinette sees Nino shoot them a surreptitious glance as they pass. She grins. “Oh yeah? Have you been stalking him?”

“Only in the name of journalism,” Alya says, a mischievous smile in place. “I see Adrien was at the bakery this morning.”

Marinette slides into her seat. “Stalking him, too?”

“You’re one to talk. No, he posted it.” Alya holds up her phone and shows Marinette a picture of a box with her T&S logo, complete with Adrien’s caption - _Sweetest place in town!_

“He’s going to get into trouble with his father for the free advertising,” Marinette notes, though the observation does nothing to quell the blooming fondness in her chest.

“Until your parents start designing clothes instead of cupcakes, I think it’ll be okay.” Alya tucks her bag away under their bench before asking, “So, how was that?”

Marinette doesn’t need to ask what she means. “It was fine, Alya. We’re _friends.”_ She’s been saying it so often over the past few months she might as well have the mantra tattooed somewhere plainly visible. To head off Alya’s inevitable protests, she adds, “Besides, I’ve been, uh, sort of talking to someone else.

_Shit._

The speed with which Alya whips around to face her would have been funny, had Marinette not just thrown herself to the wolves without a means of self-defense. Alya’s scrutiny alone is a force to be reckoned with. “I thought you and Luka gave up on all that months ago.”

“We _didn’t_ \- first of all, we’re friends,” Marinette stresses. “We decided we’re better off that way. And it doesn’t matter, it’s not Luka.” 

“Ooh, been holding out on me, Dupain-Cheng?”

Marinette regrets ever opening her mouth. “No. It’s nothing. We’re taking it slow - I mean, its uh, not even worth mentioning. Really.” 

“As if you’re getting out of this that easily. Spill. Do they go to our school?” Alya’s already scrolling social media on her phone. 

Marinette sighs. “Alya, slow down-”

“Do they have an Instagram?” 

The idea of Chat Noir running an Instagram has Marinette biting down on her lip to hide a smirk. What a cat-covered, pun-laden nightmare that would be. “Oh no, Chat - ah, he’s shy.”

 _“Chat?”_ Alya demands, something sharp in her gaze.

_Oh, no._

“Chad!” Marinette hurries to say. “It’s _Chad,_ of course. Chad, uh, Norway.” 

Alya blinks, arching one perfect eyebrow. Marinette blinks back, guileless. She hopes her face isn’t as red as it feels.

“Chad Norway,” Alya repeats, drawing the name out. “Do you know a _Chad Norway,_ Nino?”

Nino glances at them, opens his mouth, then catches on to the gleam in Alya’s eye and seems to think better of it. He waves his hand frantically, a clear ‘I Do Not Want To Be Involved’, and turns back around in his seat, pulling on his hat down over his face for good measure.

Marinette could have hugged him, but Alya is not so easily deterred. She takes her boyfriend’s abandonment in stride. “So where’d you meet this Chad Norway?”

Marinette glances at the door. She’d take anything - the teacher walking in to start class, an Akuma barreling through the window - anything to end this ridiculous conversation she’d plunged herself into. “The - bakery! He, uh...comes in on the weekends, sometimes. He doesn’t live around here, which is why you haven’t met him, of course,” she forces a laugh.

Alya just stares, endlessly skeptical. Marinette pastes on a smile. _“Well,”_ Alya starts, “you’ll have to introduce me to this Chad Norway next time he comes to town.” 

“Oh, sure, yeah.” Marinette flaps her hand, feeling every bit the liar she’s become. Between secret identities and complicated relationships, she’s told plenty. When Ms. Bustier walks in, Marinette can finally breathe, despite the dagger-sharp side-eyes Alya keeps throwing at her.

It isn’t until much, much later, after an interrogatory lunch break and afternoon classes and she’s walking home alone, that Marinette realizes Adrien never did make it into class. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! Let me know what you think :)


	3. [when you and I were forever wild]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, welcome back! <3 thank you to everyone who read, commented, kudos, reblogged on tumblr, or thought about punching me, I appreciate all of it. Now, this is where we earn that angst tag, so again...check the tags and remember that I promised a happy ending and also I love you? Don't hate me.
> 
> Thanks again to emsy for checking this chapter out for me! <3
> 
> @bugsandchatons on tumblr.

Chat Noir wasn’t usually late.

The clock tower across the canal chimes the hour. Ladybug flips open the communication interface on her yoyo and frowns at it. No messages, no missed calls. She looked up, scanning the city’s skyline for any sign of her wayward partner.

Granted, he wasn’t  _ terribly  _ late, but even so, Ladybug had grown used to  _ him  _ being the one waiting for  _ her. _ It seemed telling that, on tonight of all nights, he’d flip the script on her. It was just like the stupid cat to leave her all alone too long with her thoughts and too antsy to sit still with them.

Ladybug swings her feet out to dangle over the roof’s edge. She tosses out her yoyo, then winds it back in. She tries and fails to make the Eiffel Tower between her fingers and counts pigeons on the sidewalk below instead. She wonders just how many different ways everything about her life could go wrong, should she actually work up the courage to talk to him tonight.

At twenty minutes past, she begins to wonder if she should go looking for him.

As Ladybug gets to her feet to do just that, she finally hears him clambering onto the rooftop behind her. She spins to face him, batting nerves away to make room for relief instead. “There you are, kitty. I was about to start putting up posters.”

Chat rises from his landing crouch just enough to rest his hands on his knees, a bit out of breath - but when he looks up at her, everything in him brightens. “And what would you offer as a reward for my safe return?” 

She takes a moment to consider, tapping a finger to her lips. “I think I’d charge them for returning you, actually.” 

He puts a hand to his wounded heart before offering a smile. “Ouch. Well, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, my lady. I had some trouble getting away.” 

Ladybug frowns. “If you need to be home, I could patrol on my own.”

_ Say yes. Say no. _ She’s not sure which answer she dreads more.

“No,” he protests. An unpleasant combination of glee and anxiety twist her stomach into knots. “I’m good now, let’s go.”

She draws in a breath as he steps closer. Chat looks lighter than he did the night before, with contentment radiating from his sure smile. He’s happier as a superhero than he is as a civilian, she knows, but whatever it was that bothered him the night before seems to have resolved. She’d worried it had been her words that had kept him awake.

Ladybug has wondered if there would come a day when she’d break his heart one time too many and she’d look over her shoulder to find him gone. Still, in three years he hasn’t left her but once, but he came right back, he’s okay,  _ they’re _ okay, and change isn’t  _ always a good thing  _ -

_ You wanted to tell him, Marinette.  _ The stern scolding in her head sounds remarkably like Tikki, and she wants to listen, but she remembers too well what it was like when he walked away.

Ladybug snags her yoyo from her hip, comforted by the weight of it in her hand. “Race you to  Trocadéro?”

Chat rocks back on his heels and grins at her, all mischief. “If you keep asking me to chase you, LB, one of these days I’ll catch you.”

She pauses mid-step and glances back at him over her shoulder. “Maybe one of these days, I’ll let you.” 

His eyes fly wide and she feels her face flare with a smug sort of heat before she throws her yoyo and makes a hasty escape. He scrambles after her as she sails across Paris with an exhilarated laugh.

Maybe change doesn’t have to come all at once.

* * *

When Chat Noir finally catches up to her, he lets his baton fall from his fingers to clatter on the rooftop and slumps down after it, resting his back against Ladybug’s. He drops his head to touch hers, eyes shut against the setting sun as he takes a moment to catch his breath. 

She smiles and stays quiet, bearing his weight with ease. She likes it best like this - just the two of them above the city they’ve bled for, with nowhere to go and no ticking clock counting down. When they can just breathe together and enjoy it, for once.

“Something  _ bugging  _ you, my lady?” Chat asks. He turns his face just enough for her to catch the corner of his self-satisfied grin.

Ladybug huffs before taking one deep breath in. She feels him take one too, his back pressing into hers on the inhale before he lets it go, his an instinctive echo to hers. It’s more a comfort to her than he could ever know. 

“Not bugging me, really. I’ve just been thinking about what we talked about yesterday.”

Chat’s spine snaps straight as he goes still. He stays quiet, quieter than she thinks he’s ever been in his life. With him facing away from her, with darkness falling slowly around them, it’s easier to admit, “I’m tired of being scared, Chat.” 

“You’re the bravest person I know, Ladybug,” he says, soft and serious.

She lets out a quick breath, the faintest hint of a laugh leaving her with it. “Jumping off of buildings and fighting supervillains is different when you have magic to back you up. With everything else...I always let fear stop me.” She rolls her yoyo down the length of the roof and pulls it back, watching it spin. “I’m scared of everything changing and not being able to stop it. When it comes down to it, I...I never manage to say what I want to say. Not like you.” 

At that, he shifts away from her before shuffling over on his hands and knees until he can face her. She looks down, her eyes on her feet until she feels his finger, endlessly gentle, tapping the underside of her chin - a request, not a demand. She gives in, lifting her face to find his gaze intent on hers.

“What do you mean, not like me?” Chat’s voice is low, hushed, even though there’s not another soul around to hear them. 

Ladybug lets out a shaky breath. “Like when you say you’ll tell me your name even if I don’t tell you mine, or how you’re always just able to say what you feel or what you want, I…” she pauses, drowning in green, green, green. “I wish I could do that,” she whispers.

Chat’s eyes drop to watch her lips shape the words before flicking back up to hers, so quickly she might’ve missed it. He ducks his head in, infinitesimally closer to hers. “And what is it you want, my lady?”

He sounds so serious, without even a drop of flirtation in his expression. Ladybug’s breath hitches, and he notices - his brow furrows, then there’s that same look of curious-but-confused, his slitted pupils dilated in the dark. It would be so easy to bridge that scant space between them, to take the opening he’s given her. So simple, really, to let him block the world out and give in to the tug she’s been feeling, the steady tightening of the string that’s tied him to her from the day they met. 

They need more than that, though. There’s too much left unsaid between them to take the easy way out.

Ladybug lifts a hand to his cheek and it’s Chat’s turn to gasp, a quick, quiet inhalation all but lost to the breeze. She reaches for him as she reaches for the courage that’s always kept her going when all else fails and finds it isn’t so terribly different from the feeling of falling. With it in hand, she throws herself into the open sky and offers him a truth she knows he’ll value far more than a kiss. “I want to know your name,” she whispers, watching his lips part in surprise, “and I want you to know mine.” 

For a moment, she worries he’s stopped breathing completely. His fingers search for hers and when they connect and hold on tight, his are trembling. “Ladybug, are you-”

Below them, on the bustling streets of Paris, someone screams. 

* * *

Ladybug and Chat Noir spring apart at the sound, startled out of their private corner of the world and into motion. Chat staggers to his feet, his hand automatically finding Ladybug’s elbow to help her rise. “Akuma,” he says, sounding dazed, as though he’s been underwater and just came up for air.

She feels a little lightheaded herself, but there’s no time for that now. Her yoyo spins out from her hand as she stalks to the edge of the roof and scans the streets below. There’s commotion, certainly - crowds scattering, car horns blaring - but she can’t pinpoint a source. “I don’t see them. You head that way, I’ll take the street.” 

Behind her, Chat hesitates. “I...we’ll talk after, right?” 

Ladybug glances his way, softening in the face of his devastating plea. “Yeah, kitty. We’ll talk after, I promise. Now, we have to go.” 

She jumps without looking back. She doesn’t have to, to know he’ll be right behind her. She swings down, around to the other side of the building, and drops from a streetlight just in time to watch a bus skid to a stop. It doesn’t seem to touch anything but still blasts backward, flying through the air. With no time to pause and consider, Ladybug throws her yoyo to catch the bus and nearly takes flight with it, only for Chat to catch hold of her waist. 

She brings it down to safety as Chat huffs against the effort of keeping both her and the bus grounded. He frees his baton after it successfully braces them. “What the-”

“Ladybug and Chat Noir!” A man’s disembodied voice draws near, and finally, Ladybug sees the akumatized villain - it’s an outline of a person, shimmering with a metallic glint as they move and stalk closer, almost like looking into ripples in a pond. “I was looking for someone in particular, but you two fools will do just fine as a warm-up.”

“How kind,” Chat drawls, spinning his baton until he can prop his hands and chin upon it. “And to whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?”

The Akuma's expression wavers into view for just a moment, something smug and sure in the translucent lines of his face, before he shifts again, nearly invisible. “He calls me Mirror Image. Rather uninventive if you ask me, but I digress. Hand over your Miraculous, or we’ll do this the hard way.”

“Always about the Miraculous, never about the cat who wears it,” Chat sighs. He slips so easily from serious and earnest to the carefree persona he brings to battle that the transition could give her whiplash. “One day, maybe  _ someone  _ will ask nicely.” 

Ladybug takes the opportunity to slip up behind him and lets her yoyo fly, cutting through the air. Mirror Image waves an arm, raising a barrier that reflects both her shot and her surprised face back at her. Her weapon hits her in the chest and Ladybug falls back with a squeak, her pride wounded more than anything else. 

“Don’t you know it’s rude to knock down a lady?” Chat demands, running for the Akuma with his baton out. This time, Mirror Image merely sidesteps him before jumping and clearing an awning with a taunt for her partner that doesn’t reach Ladybug’s ears.

“Oh, come on now, don’t run. I was in the middle of a fascinating chat I’d like to get back to,” Chat calls back. There’s something rather manic about the smile Chat wears as he gives chase - it’s a frenetic sort of hope, Ladybug realizes, a hope he’d buried away some time ago without her noticing. Brought back to the surface, it lends a lightness to his feet and a joy to his fighting. 

If something about it stings, Ladybug squashes it underfoot before following them up the side of a building. She flips onto another rooftop. Mirror Image stands between them, his figure slightly more visible without the backdrop of calamity to hide him. This shouldn’t be so difficult, now. 

Ladybug catches Chat’s eye. He nods an affirmation, and she tosses her yoyo up into the air, calling for her Lucky Charm.

Mirror Image shoots forward, throwing out an arm and a shining barrier with it. The pink light of her magic bounces back to meet her. When Ladybug’s charm meets her waiting palm, it’s just...a smaller mirror.

She frowns. It’s an ornate, gilded hand mirror, but the magic in it feels wrong, somehow. She casts her eyes around, but nothing  _ connects  _ with the mirror like it normally would. Nothing fits. The solution is a puzzle with a crucial piece missing. Her own pinched expression looks back at her when she stares into it, just a reflection and useless on its own.

Okay, then. She pushes her hair out of her face with an exasperated flick. Being unable to use her Lucky Charm is a set-back, sure - but maybe if she were to step away for a moment, recharge her Miraculous and try again, somewhere away from his mirrors, maybe…

Ladybug goes still. The Akuma’s ability isn’t so terrible up against her own, but used against someone else’s...used against  _ Chat’s - _

Her breath stutters in her chest. When she looks up, her partner is still putting forth a valiant effort of combat, but not landing any hits. She sees it, the moment his eyes narrow in frustration, the precise second he decides. 

“Chat-”

He’s mid-lunge, his palm outstretched and clawed fingers reaching as he calls forth destruction.  _ “Cataclysm!” _

“Wait,” Ladybug gasps, trying to find the air to scream.  _ “Wait-”  _

Mirror Image shifts to the side, and she catches the brutal slash of his smirk. He raises a hand in tandem with Chat’s, a sick puppeteer to his marionette, and brings up the mirror wall with it. In its reflection she sees Chat’s eyes widen, right as his smoking fingers make contact.

Ladybug shrieks something that resembles his name and stumbles toward him, her own hand reaching. It’s like something out of a dream. She’s both a part of it and watching from a distance, all at once, and just far enough away to be helpless to stop what happens next.

Chat’s head turns ever so slightly in her direction. She sees his lips moving to shape what could only be her name, the only one he knows.

She sees it, too, when the pain hits him.

His back goes rigid, his gasping mouth tilts back toward the sky. The bubbling, catastrophic magic engulfs his hand, his wrist, the crook of his outstretched arm, spreading across his body all the while.

Ladybug can do nothing but watch, horror seeping into her blood and unfurling through her veins like poison, as the unforgiving black wave takes him, over and under like a riptide. When it covers his heart she sees something in his eyes die, just as she feels it when her own heart stops in turn.

An instinctive echo. She doesn’t breathe, and neither does he.

She gasps and then she’s on her knees, hands groping for the Lucky Charm she can’t remember dropping. Numb fingers close around the golden handle. “Miraculous Ladybug,” the breathless request leaves her in either a whisper or a scream, and she throws the golden mirror.

It lands a few feet away in a clatter. Nothing happens.

Chat Noir stands still before her -  _ too  _ still, as someone with as much life and laughter as he does should never, ever be - blackened and burned from his gloved hands to the tips of wild hair that was once the color of spun gold. He doesn’t blink, his chest doesn’t rise.

Ladybug calls for her power once more, forcing the words out between her teeth. She crawls to her charm, throws it again, and stares at the crack that spiderwebs across the glass. “Fix it,” she demands, a request that’s never before been denied. 

_ Fix him, oh god, please fix him.  _

At the edges of her swimming vision, Mirror Image falls to his knees with the bright, linear moth sigil visible in front of his eyes. Then, he’s engulfed in the dark purple cloud of Hawkmoth’s magic as it devours him, then leaves him. A butterfly floats away, calm and innocuous in the breeze. 

For a full minute, Ladybug stares after it, uncomprehending. “No,” she whispers. Hawkmoth had only ever recalled his akumas once or twice before. It doesn’t make sense. “No, it’s not-” she chokes on the knot of bile that rises and burns her throat. It’s not over yet. Her Lucky Charm hasn’t worked, it hasn’t brought Chat back, she hasn’t fixed anything. It can’t be  _ over. _

In the distance, a clock tower chimes the hour, clashing in discordant harmony with the beeping in her ears. The sounds bleed together until there’s only static.

Chat Noir has become a statue of embers; once destruction personified, now consumed by it. His hand forever outstretched in a plea she can’t answer; his mouth an agonized slash, crying for help she can’t give. Ladybug has ice in her veins and under her skin, freezing her to the spot.

As Ladybug stares up into Chat’s unseeing eyes, she realizes the ultimate tragedy of loving someone quietly. She’d spent their last hours dreaming of time they didn’t have;  she only ever had as many moments with him as he had heartbeats, and no way to know that precious seconds had slipped between her fingers like sand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screaming is welcome and in fact encouraged. Don't worry I hate me too <3


	4. [when I've got nothing but my aching soul]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully I didn't lose any of yall after last week...I'll fix it, I promise! Anyway, I appreciate everyone who reads, kudos, and comments, thank you endlessly!

The world around her keeps going, but Ladybug’s universe narrows to three things: Chat Noir’s frozen form, the shattered mirror at his feet, and her own hand, reaching in vain across the space between them. At some point, darkness must fall around her in earnest, as the sun dies behind the horizon. At some point, the akumatized victim must gather his strength and crawl away, finding his own way down the fire escape and leaving Ladybug to her vigil.

She doesn’t spare him a glance.

The beeping in her ears blares one last warning and the static fades, bringing the return of sound and with it, faint gasps that come in a rhythm.

It’s coming from her, Ladybug realizes. She can’t seem to find enough air.

There’s a flash of pink and she shuts her eyes against it. When she opens them again, Chat’s blank stare meets her. Her stomach turns, threatening to empty. “I can’t  _ breathe,” _ she tells him, choking on the words. 

Still, he doesn’t move. 

Another sound finds her, be it mere moments or hours later. It takes too long to realize it’s her name.

“Marinette?” Tikki, exhausted and wide-eyed, is patting her cheek. “Marinette, what happened?”

“Chat, he -” she whispers, lifting a trembling finger. She can’t find any more words, but it’s enough. 

Tikki spins around and makes a strangled sort of sound before zipping over to him. “Chat Noir?” she asks, her voice clear as a bell. Marinette blinks, then sits up straighter and stares. If she can’t fix it, then Tikki will.

“Plagg?” Tikki tries, her voice jumping an octave.  _ “Plagg,” _ she calls again, before her expression twists. In the blink of an eye, Tikki phases into the Chat statue, before reappearing with something that’s enormous in her hands but tiny when she brings it over and lays it in front of Marinette. 

It’s Chat Noir’s ring, the Black Cat Miraculous in a state she’s never seen it in before. It’s still black, but  _ burned  _ black. The signet face is blank, and the absence of the usual flashing green paw print is as glaring as a missing heartbeat.

When Marinette opens her mouth to speak, nothing makes it past the lump in her throat. She swallows, then tries again, her voice hoarse. “Where’s Plagg?”

Tikki makes a small sound, similar to that of an animal in pain. Everything about her droops. “I don’t know, Marinette. The Miraculous is broken.”

Marinette shakes her head, the movement slow and mechanical. She reaches out for the shattered hand mirror and stares at her own fragmented reflection as it looks back with broken accusation in her eyes. She whispers, “Why didn’t it work, Tikki?”

Tikki closes her eyes. “Lucky Charm has failed before when the Akuma's ability was able to impact it. This is…” she trails off, touching down onto the roof in front of Marinette, her eyes glassy with her own grief when she looks back up. “I’m so, so sorry.” 

It takes a moment for her meaning to land, the only sound Marinette’s harsh, hiccuping breaths. She looks from the black ring to the black statue of a boy whose name she never knew but wanted to learn. Her partner, her  _ kitty, _ his eyes empty when they were always so bright, his mouth a gaping wound when it used to offer sunbeam smiles.

Marinette had lost him time and time again, but he’d always come back.  _ She’d saved him,  _ over and over. It was never supposed to be permanent.

She looks down at the mirror that failed her, failed _ him,  _ screws her eyes shut, and smashes it into the rooftop. Glass shards fly free and nick her arms, her cheeks. Marinette does it again, then again. 

“Marinette,” Tikki cries, “you’re hurting yourself, please!” 

Was she? She couldn’t feel it. She gives in anyway, dropping the destroyed mirror and picking up the Miraculous ring instead. She shuffles closer to Chat, stopping just short of touching him. Her hand shakes as she closes her fingers around his ring.

She’s held it before, but she’s always been able to give it back. 

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” her name comes from a low, smooth voice behind her, belonging to someone who wasn’t there before. “In hindsight, I ought to have known it would be you hiding behind Ladybug’s mask.”

She feels Tikki nestle into her hair. Marinette fists her fingers and rises to her knees. She turns slowly, lifting her eyes to meet Hawkmoth’s as he stares down at her. Something inside her catches fire and starts to burn.

“Nothing to say on your behalf?” he asks. “No desperate denials?”

Marinette glares back. If he’s disappointed in her refusal to engage, he says nothing of it. He tips his head down in the smallest of nods. “I’m afraid I require your Miraculous, Mademoiselle.”

She lets out one harsh sound, too sharp and brittle to be a laugh.  _ “Now _ you ask nicely?” 

Hawkmoth is silent for a beat, then another. He clears his throat. “It would be in your best interest, as well.” She stares him down as he inclines his head in Chat’s direction, but seems unable to fully look his way as he continues, “I can fix what has transpired here tonight.”

“You can fix him,” Marinette turns the words over in her mouth. They taste like ashes. “Why?”

Another silence. Hawkmoth seems to measure what he’d like to say carefully before admitting, “I have reason to believe he’s my son.”

“Your son,” Marinette echoes. The flames inside the cavern of her chest lick higher and higher, a blaze building to an inferno.

“I believe so, yes.” Finally, he turns his gaze to Chat, though any expression Hawkmoth might offer in the face of what he’s wrought hides behind his mask. Marinette’s fingers itch with the desire to claw his eyes out. “This evening, my son did not come home. No one has seen him for hours now, which is an anomaly on its own. He is typically obedient and does not leave our house without accompaniment, so his continued absence is highly unusual.” He pauses, his brow furrowing. “I...have wondered before about the possibility of him being Chat Noir. Now, between the timing of his disappearance and the demise of your partner, the coincidence seems too great to disregard. With your earrings and his ring, I can likely restore him.”

Marinette clenches her fist around the broken ring until it bites into her skin. It wouldn’t be granting any wishes, now. “Restore him,” she says slowly, venom slipping into the cracks in her voice. She rises; one foot underneath her, then the other. “You? You ruined him. You  _ killed  _ him.” 

Hawkmoth watches her, his face infuriatingly blank. Marinette takes a shaky step, putting herself firmly between him and Chat as her emptiness gives way to something vicious and blistering. “You put him in danger every day, and for what? Now he’s gone. You can’t save him,” she spits. “You  _ took him away from me.”  _

Her words echo, splintering the quiet of the night. Hawkmoth’s jaw ticks, the only outward sign of his displeasure. “If you’re quite finished with the dramatics,” he begins, “I am offering the chance to change it.” 

“No, you’re trying to get what you want. To take the Miraculous and use them for something selfish. If I were to do that, I wouldn’t need you, now would I?”

Hawkmoth’s lip curls. “You know nothing of me or my purposes. You run around playing hero, but you have no idea of the true power of the forces you interfere with. You are nothing but a  _ child.”  _

“Maybe,” Marinette admits, “but I’ve still managed to best you a thousand times over.”

“So you will not cooperate, then.” 

Marinette lifts her eyes to his. He could take the Miraculous from her, she knows, and easily. Tikki hasn’t eaten, and she can’t transform. Marinette doesn’t care. She dares him to take a step. She’ll burn him down and the world along with it. “No,” she says, “I will not.” 

His eyes narrow to slits. “We shall see, Miss Dupain-Cheng.”

She stares back, undaunted. His threats can’t touch her. There’s nothing more he can do that would be worse than what he’s already done.

He half-turns, waving his cane towards Chat. “And what are you going to do for him on your own? Give it time. You might find that you and I are not so different when it comes to losing those we love.”

Her breath catches in her lungs. The ring feels like a brand in her palm. Hawkmoth would trade a life to bring back whoever it was he’d lost. If she could, would she make the same choice?

“Go, Hawkmoth,” Tikki speaks up, her little voice colder than Marinette has ever heard it. “The Guardian will deal with you in due time.”

Silence greets her. It stretches on until Marinette hears his footsteps retreat, then fade. 

When he’s gone, she steps closer to Chat, shaking like a leaf in the wind. “Oh, minou,  _ mon rêve,”  _ she whispers. “Can’t you come back to me? I was going to tell you my name,” she lifts a timid hand and lays it against his cool cheek. “I was going to tell you I love you.” 

Ashes fall from his cheek like teardrops, staining her fingers. As though a mere touch was all that was needed, Chat crumbles, ashes falling at her feet and scattering on the wind. When dust is all that remains, something inside Marinette twists and breaks.

She drops to the rooftop when her legs give up, unwilling to hold her any longer. She screams, for Chat, for  _ anyone, _ until her voice is ragged and nearly spent. She draws freezing air into burning lungs and screams some more, begging Bunnyx to come and take her back, back to when the worst thing she had to face was telling her partner the truth.

Tikki rides out the storm on her shoulder, her little hands pressed to Marinette’s cheek. “Bunnyx will only come if  _ all else _ has failed, Marinette,” she murmurs. “At the end of everything.”

“Chat is  _ gone,” _ Marinette whimpers, “Hawkmoth knows who I am. This feels like the end of everything to me.” 

Tikki presses her face to Marinette’s, her little body shaking. “There must be something, then. Something we’ve missed, another chance-”

_ Another chance.  _ Marinette goes very still. “A  _ second  _ chance,” she gasps. She finds her feet, slowly. She swipes a soot-stained hand over her cheek and turns in the direction of home. “I need to get to my bedroom, Tikki. Without anyone seeing.” She fumbles for her purse and produces half a macaroon. “Please eat, if you can.” 

Like mismatching puzzle pieces, she forces together a plan. A convoluted one, a risky one, but a plan, none-the-less. As she strings it together, she finally feels like she can breathe.

“What are you thinking?” Tikki asks before taking a bite.

Marinette tells her.

* * *

The race to her terrace is a blur. Ladybug stumbles over her potted plants until she reaches the hatch and falls into her bed, then slides down the ladder. She drags herself on weary feet to the locked chest in the corner. Inside, buried beneath several layers of fabric scraps, is the Miracle Box.

Ladybug presses her thumbs to the buttons and watches as it springs open at her touch.

_ “Are you sure about this, Marinette?” Tikki had asked, blue eyes wide and uncertain. _

No. She wasn’t at all sure that this was the right choice, but she was sure that this was her  _ best  _ chance.

Ladybug selects the Miraculous she needs and slides it onto her left wrist. She tucks the box back away safe, stands, and grabs a hair ribbon from her desk. With it, she ties Chat’s ring to her other wrist, pressing the blank signet to her lips before something else catches her eye.

Her phone blinks insistently from the desk. There are a dozen missed messages - her mother, her father, Alya. One in particular grabs her attention, a short text from an unknown number.

_ This is Nathalie Sancoeur. Miss Dupain-Cheng, is Adrien with you? _

She blinks. There are others - another from Alya, from Nino, even Chloe, all asking the same thing.

_ Is Adrien with you?  _

Ladybug’s phone slips from shaking fingers. 

_ Between the timing of his disappearance and the demise of your partner, the coincidence seems too great to disregard. _

Ladybug swallows. She breathes in through her nose and lets it back out. She’d fix it.

_ “One more time, Tikki,” she’d begged on the rooftop. “If this works, it...it might be awhile.” _

_ Tikki had pressed a kiss to her forehead, determination clear in her eyes. “If it gives us a chance to save Plagg and Chat Noir, then it will be more than worth it. Good luck, Marinette.” _

She digs an old, treasured charm bracelet out of her purse and dons it, too. She’d never had to ask for luck before, but now, she would take every bit she could get her hands on. 

Ladybug leaves her home as quietly as she snuck in. She swings down from the roof and slips into the park across the street, letting her feet carry her until she finds herself in front of the statue dedicated to herself and Chat Noir. The violent hole in her chest gapes open, even wider than before.

At least here, she can see his smile.

This time, when her eyes burn and her throat swells and her heart breaks, Ladybug lets it consume her. She lets tears burst through the dam she’d built and drowns in them. She lets the grief pour out of her until she’s choking on it.

Through it all, she waits.

She feels it, when it comes - in the shift in the air, in the chill down her spine. She lets out a ragged breath. “Tikki,” she whispers. “Sass. Unify.”

Then Ladybug reaches out and allows damnation and salvation both to land in the palm of her hand. “There you are, little butterfly. I’ve been waiting for you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think! <3
> 
> @bugsandchatons on tumblr


	5. [where the light goes]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back again! And we're more than halfway done. As always, thank you so so much to everyone who reads, comments and kudos, or reblogs on tumblr! You guys are amazing and I so appreciate the support.
> 
> and thanks again to emsy, for looking over this chapter and yelling <3

Tikki had tried to warn her, to the best of the kwami’s knowledge, what it might be like when the Akuma took over. The nature of the Butterfly Miraculous was to influence, she’d said, not total control - when used negatively it was strong in its coercion, but not irresistible. 

Still, Marinette’s not sure if she  _ could  _ have fully prepared herself for the heavy fog that rolls in over her mind, blurring everything but the violet splash of the butterfly sigil in front of her eyes. 

_ Hold on to your purpose. Go back, change the timeline, save Chat Noir. _

Over and over, until the words stuck.

“Ladybug,” the smooth voice that washes over her is a horribly familiar one, now. “I must admit, I’d begun to wonder if this day would ever come.”

She clenched her fingers into fists. _ Hold on. Go back. Save him. _

“Your partner has died,” Hawkmoth says. The cold flash of agony that ripples through her is muted, pushed back and away somewhere in the distance. “So our purposes have aligned for the time being. We’ve both lost someone who, together, we can restore. Bring me both the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous and we can fix it. You need me to put everything back as it should be.”

Ladybug takes a deep breath in. His request is a siren song; the need to comply is just as strong as the tidal wave of her own anger, her own misery. She buries them together and, little by little, the fog recedes. 

_ Go back. Save him.  _

Despite how it might feel otherwise, he only had as much power over her as she allowed him. She’s Ladybug, and even broken, she would not bend to any will other than her own. “You’re right about that,” her voice sounds far away to even her own ears, “but your plan won’t work. Chat’s Miraculous is broken.”

For a moment, he’s quiet. She can feel it when his disbelief gives way to fury in a steady, rising throb behind her eyes. “I can fix it, but not within the limits of my own Miraculous.” She lets this hang in the air, but still, Hawkmoth says nothing. Ladybug continues, “But I’ve seen what you did for Queen Bee. When she was akumatized, nothing stopped her from using her powers as widely and often as she wished. With the enhancement of your Akuma, I could fix everything.”

“Very well,” Hawkmoth concedes, his voice ringing with displeasure. She feels the leaping need to appease him, but she can control it - she has him.  _ He’s  _ listening to  _ her  _ now. “The Miraculous you wear grants you the power of creation, but even our powers have their restrictions. Without limits, you are unstoppable. Fix what has been destroyed, and then you will bring the Miraculous to me.” She feels his smile and the smugness that radiates from it. “You and I aren’t so different after all, are we?”

The fog threatens, shifting closer and looming at the edge of her vision. The pain behind her eyes blossoms until she’s nearly seeing stars.

Through it all, she can feel Hawkmoth’s glee. He believes he’s already won. Even now, that’s what matters most to him - bringing back the boy he’s convinced is his son is secondary to besting Ladybug. It makes her sick.

_ Go back. Save him.  _ The thought calls Chat to mind, sharp and clear despite the press of shadows; all bright green eyes and beatific smiles. It’s the best thing to take with her, Ladybug thinks, as she finally falls.

She closes her eyes and gives herself over to the touch of his dark magic until she’s immersed in an icy cold that steals her breath. For a moment, she struggles - submerged, trapped beneath the surface - before she uncurls her fingers, one by one, and lets go.

It ends almost as quickly as it came over her, and then she’s not quite Ladybug any more.

“Hmm. What shall we call you, then?”

She presses a hand over her own racing heart and rises to her feet. The name comes to her at once and she takes it, branding herself before he can do it for her. “Ouroboros.”

“Ahh, creation and destruction, life and death. An interesting choice. Now,” he commands, “fix his Miraculous.”

There it is again - the overwhelming tug to give in. She’s not sure if she could fix Chat’s Miraculous, even now. It’s tempting to try.

“I’m afraid that’s not what I’ve got planned.” The pounding behind her eyes intensifies, and she grits her teeth against the split of pain. “We are  _ not  _ the same, Hawkmoth. I won’t sacrifice a life to save another. I  _ will  _ find a way to save him, though.” 

She had what she wanted, now; a do-over, a second chance.

_ Reset the clock. Go back. Save Chat Noir. _

She clasps her forearms - one hand finds the Snake Miraculous on her left wrist, the other curls protectively over Chat’s ruined ring, tied to her right.

_ Creation and destruction, _ she thinks.  _ Together, always. _

The end of everything, or the beginning of it.

She closes her eyes and thinks of where the light goes when the night inevitably comes to claim it, and of the sun’s sure return to chase the dark away, An indomitable circle, infinite in its ability to rise again and again. With that in mind, her pain ebbs away to nothing.

* * *

The next time Ouroboros opens her eyes, it’s a new day - or, perhaps more accurately, an old one. She gasps, drawing in shallows breaths of cold morning air once, twice, before exhaling and rubbing her palms over her temples. The heavy fog in her mind is gone, as is the agonizing pressure of Hawkmoth’s power struggle.

_ “When you jump back in time, Hawkmoth should no longer have a hold over you,” _ Tikki had told her. Like Timetagger, Ouroboros remembers. He’d left the man holding his leash behind, and so had she.

So far, so good.

She looks first down at herself, then at the statue of Ladybug and Chat Noir, lit to sparkling as the dawn breaks. In the shining bronze, she can see what has become of herself. 

Her suit changed. Where there’d always been red and black spots were now soot-black scales, as though she’d been doused in fire and risen from embers. A violent splash of color streaks down a single line from chest to belly, scarlet like a red-bellied snake - a clear warning that this new species was venomous. The mask over her eyes looks as if it's been painted to her nose and cheekbones in charcoal.

In  _ ashes. _

She turns away and glances dispassionately down at her gloved hands. She’d need a disguise if she wanted to traverse the city.

As if in answer to the very thought, a dark hooded coat materializes in her waiting palms. Ouroboros supposes she has the limitless powers of creation to thank for it. She pulls it on over her head and lifts the hood to cover her hair. Her reflection in the statue shows her that, while not  _ quite  _ incognito, she could now make her way across Paris without immediately causing a panic.

The urge to seek Chat out and tuck him away somewhere safe is an overpowering one. To just  _ see  _ him, even, would be enough.

She has hours before the battle. She knows what she _should_ do: find a place to hide, at least until school lets out, then place herself near enough to Trocadéro to watch for Mirror Image’s akumatization. Tikki had warned her not to be seen until she had to be - that any changes to the course of the day before the Akuma battle could affect her ability to change what she had to when the time came. She knows when and where Ladybug will be throughout the day to avoid her, but Chat -

Ouroboros pauses, her breath hitching in her chest. She knows where Chat Noir is  _ right now. _

Everything else vanishes. With only that in mind, she runs across the park, scales the building across from the bakery, and perches - just one shadow among many on the rooftops.

She doesn’t have to wait long. There, backlit by the rising sun as he climbs out of her skylight, is Chat. 

The sight of him, whole and vital and breathing, feels like a punch to the stomach for all that it fills the cavernous empty space inside of her.

_ God, there he is. _

Her knees hit the rooftop and a sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp shakes out of her chest. Relief, unfettered, sends cold chills down her spine until she trembles with it. It wasn’t until she saw him again that she realized just how terrified she’d been that none of this would work.

A shadow falls across her. She looks up and all she can see is green before she ducks her head back down, wishing she could drown in him instead.

“Hey, are you okay?” Chat Noir offers her a hand, his brow furrowed. His frown only deepens when she places a shaking gloved hand in his. “How did you get up here, anyway?”

Something inside her crumbles. She wants nothing more than to throw her arms around him, to press her cheek to his chest until she can feel his heartbeat, until it’s all she can hear. He reaches out towards her face and pauses, his hand freezing in midair when suspicion wars with the concern in his expression.

When he doesn’t touch her, she raises her own hand and finds tears on her cheeks. When had she started crying?

His gaze is sharp, but his voice is still gentle when he asks, “Do you need help? Have you been akumatized?”

“I-” her voice fails her. She swallows and tries again. “You’re in no danger from me.”

Chat watches her warily, rocking back on his heels. He’s probably never seen an Akuma that didn’t attack first and ask questions later, but even his troubled look is so far and away better than his empty one. The life in his eyes is a balm to an open wound and the  _ love  _ that strains to burst out of her is enough to keep tears flowing.

“Come with me,” he offers her his hand again - his left, the one without his Miraculous - and she’s so proud of him, for his boundless kindness even in the face of caution, for the bravery that pours from him so effortlessly. “We’ll find Ladybug and she can fix everything.”

The sob that bursts out of her this time is broken and raw. To have to hurt him while he heals her is a cruel twist of fate.  _ “Kitty-”  _

He tilts his head and she sees it when his guarded confusion gives way to horrible, wretched understanding. His mouth falls open, then he snaps it shut and whispers, _“Ladybug?”_

Ouroboros bites down on her lower lip. She should never have approached him. She can do nothing to help him now, and if the absolute devastation on his face is anything to go off of, she’s more likely to get him akumatized than anything else. “It - it’ll be okay, Chat.”

“You - you’re not Ladybug,” he says slowly, his voice thick. “She can’t - she would never allow herself to be akumatized.”

If only he knew. That was the funny thing, wasn’t it? She didn’t deserve his unwavering faith. He held her up so high without realizing that she was as fallible as any other person, and all it took for her to tumble down was for him to be ripped away from her. When it all came down, Ladybug was not unbreakable. 

“Never say never,” she murmurs.

His throat bobs as he struggles for words. She reaches out for him, only to think better of it a moment too late - his eyes snap to her arm and widen even further, and she realizes at once what he’s seen.

Nestled above the ruined Black Cat Miraculous on her wrist is the lucky charm that Adrien had made for her birthday. Ouroboros watches his shocked expression give way to a fragile sort of uncertainty right before his gaze flicks back to the building he’s just left.

Her heart breaks for the second time. She  _ knows  _ now, and so does he. He might not understand, but he knows.

There’s no way this moment doesn’t change everything, in any given timeline.

“Hey, kitty,” Ouroboros steps closer, pitching her voice low to soothe, “I shouldn’t have come here, but it’s going to be okay. I’m...I’m gonna fix it like you said, okay?” 

Chat stares at her for a long time, his gaze raking over dark earrings, blue eyes, freckles, and black hair. He searches for an answer she can’t yet give him until the silence is all but unbearable. “I...I know you will, my lady. You always do.” 

Her heart turns over. Even when thrown face to face with the unbelievable, he still chooses to place his belief in  _ her. _ She won’t let him down again.

He glances at her, then away, as if something about her hurts to look at. “Do you need me?”

She puts a hand to his cheek and something in his expression twists as he turns his face into her touch, his lips brushing her covered wrist. “Always, _C_ _ haton. _ I’m afraid I have to do this part on my own, but I’ll see you soon though. That’s a promise,” she whispers, before glancing past him, scanning the sky for any sign of a butterfly.

There’s not one to be seen, but she’s not surprised. With a teary smile, she meets Chat’s gaze once more before reaching for the Snake Miraculous.

As many times as it takes. Even if it's twenty-five thousand, nine hundred and thirteen times, she’ll save him. At least as long as he fought to save her, or until her breaths stop coming and her heart ceases to beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was one of my favorites to write yet somehow one of the most difficult, so please let me know what you think! <3 
> 
> @bugsandchatons on tumblr


	6. [dear lord, when I get to heaven]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you thank you thank you to every one of you who reads, comments, leaves kudos, and reblogs on tumblr. You guys are awesome and I so appreciate it! 
> 
> This chapter is a little bit longer than the others, I had a lot to smush in there.

Another sunrise breaks the clouds.

This time, Ouroboros keeps an eye on the comings and goings of Paris from the secrecy of the shadows. She watches Chat Noir emerge from Marinette’s skylight and tracks his movements as he bounds over rooftops, carefree with his ignorance of what’s to come.

What  _ had  _ come. Past tense. As long as she breathes, it won’t happen again. 

She stays hidden as he sails through the sky. If his shoulders tense with every step closer to the Agreste Mansion, she notices, but discards it. She can do nothing about it now, but she’ll remember.

Instead, she lets him go, swearing it’ll be the last time she ever has to.

Revealing herself to him earlier had been a mistake. Tikki had warned her that even outside of Hawkmoth’s direct influence, the Akuma would still make her more easily moved by her emotions, especially negative ones. If she wanted to stay off  _ this  _ Hawkmoth’s radar, she’d have to keep it under control. 

And she would. Nothing would stand in her way when the time came. But she has hours to go, and until then, she does all she can do; she watches.

She keeps watch from the eaves of the clocktower as Adrien leaves his house for the bakery. She takes up a post in the tree across the street to see him leave with a pastry box in hand and his eyes on the back of Marinette’s head with an expression so soft she’s not sure how she never felt it.

From the rafters of the Gare du Nord, she watches Félix disembark his train into Nathalie and Adrien’s care. She notices how, as fans approach Adrien by the minute, Félix grows more and more caustic, and Adrien’s shoulders become more and more strained.

As Ouroboros follows them throughout the morning and into the afternoon while they drift between tourist attractions, she thinks of and learns many things: She wonders what Gabriel Agreste could be up to today that would convince him to allow Adrien out of the house for so long. She wonders how it took her until  _ now  _ to realize that Félix must be the one to become Mirror Image. She wonders, too, what makes up a person; how Adrien could be so different from his cousin, a boy who looks so much like him on the outside but couldn’t be more his opposite, or how Chat Noir could be so fundamentally unlike his father that it leads them to opposing sides of the same war.

She wonders how a boy raised in loneliness and derision could grow up only to be unfailingly kind, and learns that a heart can take so many breaks in so few hours and still keep beating.

As the day slips by, it occurs to her that  _ this  _ is what Chat Noir dies for: Hawkmoth’s insatiable greed and Félix’s poisonous envy. The brightest of them all ends with his light doused, reduced to ashes for nothing worthy of his life.

This is not how his story should end.

It sets her teeth grinding and gives birth to a rage so overpowering it’s nearly enough to have her throwing caution to the wind and storming the Agreste Mansion on her own -  _ nearly.  _ Instead, she takes a breath. She watches, and she remembers.

She watches Adrien trail behind his pitiful excuse for a family and sees the way he casts longing looks in the direction of Françoise Dupont whenever their journey carries them past the school. What adds a final crack to the fault lines mapping her heart is the realization that, at the end of it all, the day that became his last was a disappointing one.

_ Let him go, _ she wants to scream.  _ Let him go back to where he’s loved.  _

She’s about thirty seconds from breaking, from swinging down from the Eiffel Tower and stealing Adrien away when the sound of a vortex opening makes her jump. Ouroboros spins around in time to see the blinding white-blue flash and a familiar figure stepping through it. 

“Oh, Minibug. What have we gotten ourselves into now?”

Ouroboros gapes at her.  _ “Where _ have you been?” 

Bunnyx waves a hand. “Here and there.” Her eyes scan the area before settling on Ouroboros. She arches an eyebrow. “New suit? Edgy.”

Fury, as potent as it is misplaced, swells inside her until she’s seething. “Seriously? That’s all you have to say?” 

“No, not  _ all. _ Come on, we’ve got to split.” Bunnyx takes a step back toward her burrow portal, but Ouroboros holds her ground. 

“What? No way,” she hisses. “I’m not leaving.”

Something like frustration flickers across Bunnyx’s expression. “Look at you, LB. We’re on thin ice already - all of this can snowball out of control at any second,  _ and  _ you’ve made a choice that’s going to have some consequences, so the best thing to do is-” 

“Where were you?” Ouroboros interrupts, her voice small. “I screamed your name for an hour. I begged you to come and help me, to help him, but now you show up? To try to  _ stop  _ me? Alix,” she drops her voice low, “why?” 

It’s enough to break through the mask of Bunnyx’s composure. She hesitates, then shoves a jerky hand over her rabbit ears. “Listen, it’s not...it’s not  _ easy  _ to be in there, okay?” She throws an arm out toward her burrow. “Most of the time, I can’t change anything, I just see it. The future isn’t set in stone and every choice we make can change a hundred different little things. By the time this path played out, you had already set out to change it. But now things are about to get complicated, so we’ve got to go.” 

“No.” Ouroboros doesn’t move. “I’m here to save Chat.” 

Bunnyx sighs. “And have you thought about how you plan to do that, little Miss Angry Bug-Snake? It’s already in motion. Unless you’re going to swoop in, be seen by half of Paris looking like _ that,  _ and somehow snatch Félix Graham de Vanily’s Akuma out of thin air, it’s already over. And by the way, I don’t recommend that. It’ll do some serious damage to the timeline.”

“No,” Ouroboros repeats, crossing her arms. If time and fate were an unstoppable force, she would be an immovable object. “I’m going to stop the battle.”

The exasperation in Bunnyx’s expression gentles. “That’s not going to work, Ladybug. I’ve seen this go down, I’ve tried to find a loophole, but it really only ends one of two ways.”

“And those two options are?” 

Bunnyx looks away. “Either Chat dies, or Mirror Image does. If it goes  _ that  _ way, we end up with a guilt-ridden, akumatized kitty situation.” She puts her hands together and mimes an explosion, which Ouroboros supposes is meant to be a crude representation of the moon.

The bottom promptly drops out of Ouroboros’s stomach, and out of her world. “I...I don’t accept that.”

“I know,” Bunnyx says, not unkindly. “But the horrible truth is that if Félix gets akumatized into Mirror Image, he becomes Chat’s bane -  _ someone  _ isn’t going to make it out of that fight alive, and it’s too late to stop it now.” 

“What about me?” Ouroboros demands. “Why can’t I do _ anything?” _

“You’ve lived it, you saw it first hand. His powers mess you guys up, and there’s just no way you can move fast enough between realizing what’s going to happen and Chat using Cataclysm to physically stop him. And  _ this,” _ Bunnyx gestures to her, “is already a mess.” 

They’re silent for a moment. Ouroboros’s chest heaves while Bunnyx waits. Then, Ouroboros speaks again. “You said I made a choice that’s going to have consequences. If that’s why you’re here, why didn’t you stop me when I made the choice to be akumatized?”

“Because  _ that  _ choice, while wild as hell, is not ultimately the choice I’m talking about. You made it just now before I showed up. Or, well. You’re about to make it, soon enough.” Bunnyx waves a hand. “Minutes, seconds. It’s all semantics, really.” 

Ouroboros didn’t think so. The most memorable things happened in a matter of moments - a shared smile, a turn of luck, a broken heart. The whole world could change in seconds when a life ended and a choice was made.

“You said it wasn’t set in stone,” Ouroboros says, lifting her determined gaze to meet Bunnyx’s. “I’m going to find a way to save him. You have to let me try.” 

Bunnyx stares back. There’s a beat, then another, before she sighs. “I guess if anyone can, it would be you.”

Ouroboros blinks. The clocktower chimes the hour, and her heart pounds hard against the cage of her ribs. Somewhere in Paris, Ladybug is waiting. Somewhere below, in the crowd, Chat Noir is trying to get away. She knows,  _ she knows, _ but seeing it is a different thing entirely, and she has to get back to Adrien, to know for sure - “You’re not going to try to stop me?” 

Bunnyx already has one foot inside her burrow. She offers a jaunty two-fingered salute. “Let’s see if you can rewrite fate, Minibug. Good luck.”

With that, the vortex swallows her whole, and Ouroboros feels it even more keenly - the slipping of time as it begins to run out.

* * *

She starts running.

At twenty-two minutes past, Chat Noir will make it to where Ladybug is waiting. They will race to Trocadéro, where she will  _ almost  _ tell him her name before the Akuma attack interrupts. By the clamor of the next bell, he’ll be gone.

She has less than an hour to change history.

Ouroboros glances up at the dusk-glooming sky, finds the outline of the waxing moon, and figures she’s managed harder feats than this.

A round, smooth object, hefty for its size, materializes in the palm of her hand. When she glances down, she frowns at it - a pocket watch, vintage and peculiar - but when she focuses on the time, it tells her she doesn’t have much left to spare for pondering at the form it took.

Adrien and his group have not made it far from where Ouroboros let them out of her sight. Every few minutes, he casts his eyes around, looking increasingly desperate. She can sympathize. The busy square alone would be a nightmare for transforming, to say nothing of having to escape Nathalie and his bodyguard’s watchful stare. With every passing moment, Adrien grows twitchier. That could be enough of a confirmation.

Still, she knows a part of her will never believe it until she sees.

An opportunity rises when Nathalie’s phone rings, right as their bodyguard steps away to grunt an order to a cafe worker. Adrien takes the chance to slip away, into the crowd. 

Félix follows him.

Ouroboros tries to draw close enough to hear without sacrificing her vantage point.  _ This is it,  _ she thinks.

In moments, they’ll go their separate ways - Chat to find her, and Félix to the waiting wings of an Akuma. Whatever it is they say to each other, it’s the final catalyst. 

She wants to know if it was worth it.

It’s a morbid wish, and ultimately one the universe does not grant her. All she’s left with is the frown on Adrien’s face and the sneer on Félix’s. Adrien turns away from him, the line of his shoulders tight. He misses the way bitter resentment twists Félix’s face.

She can’t imagine anything Adrien could say that would warrant such anger from his cousin, but she supposes that’s not the point. In the end, it doesn’t matter; it couldn’t be anything worth the cost.

With a final scowl, Félix goes in the opposite direction, while Adrien retreats further into the spaces between buildings. Ouroboros shadows his steps until he finds an alley away from prying eyes.

Her heart starts pounding a vicious rhythm.

She watches, numb, as Plagg zips out of his shirt, a little black blur, and disappears into the ring on Adrien’s right hand. When the green flash of magic fades and Chat Noir stands in his place, there’s no triumph of a theory proven or a curiosity satisfied. There’s only another splintering crack to a heart made of glass.

They wasted so much time chasing each other in circles.

It makes sense now, why for years she could never confess her feelings to Adrien, just as she struggled to share the truth with Chat Noir. Deep down, she’d known in her heart what her head hadn't - she couldn’t do him the injustice of loving in half-measures. 

She can see the whole picture, now: a lonely boy, intoxicated by the sips of freedom that his Miraculous grants him, stuck under the thumb of a father who cares very little and values his life even less. A broken boy who chose to be a hero, who makes that choice again with every passing day. One who loves loudly and fearlessly, and values her so highly that he’d throw his own life away in the blink of an eye. 

_ Tomorrow,  _ Ouroboros thinks, swiping away an angry, errant tear. Tomorrow, when this was over and resolved, her partner would begin to learn his worth.

He’ll know, without a doubt, that he’s loved.

* * *

As horrible as the circumstances are, it feels like a gift to see herself this way. She and Chat make a pretty picture as they fly through the darkening blue sky and leave laughter in their wake, just as they do back to back, taking a moment alone to breathe.

A glance at the watch tells her there’s no more time for regrets. She could ache over the time they wasted until her heart gave out, or she could focus on beating the clock and saving him.

It begins any minute now.

When civilians start screaming and Chat Noir and Ladybug spring apart, Ouroboros takes a deep breath and moves. The heroes drop down into the street, and she scales the building closest to the one that provides the setting for their fatal face-off.

Her mind races in time with her frantic heartbeats. She holds out a hand, a silent plea for help - for  _ anything  _ that will help her change the course of this fight.

A dark red recurve bow comes to life in her grasp, bringing with it two slender, black arrows.

She offers a grim smile. One shot, and one second chance.

She’s never shot a bow before, but Tikki must know what she’s doing. Luck, she thinks, wouldn’t dare fail them again.

Ouroboros lifts a hand to her face. She presses a kiss first to Chat’s ruined ring, then to the darkened charm strung above it, and waits. 

When Chat chases Mirror Image up onto the rooftop, Ladybug on his heels, she studies the Akuma the way she hadn’t had a chance to before. He’s barely visible, but the setting sun glints off of something metallic where a pocket might be.

_ A pocket watch. _

She wings a silent thanks to Tikki and a prayer along with it. They’re down to seconds, now.

When Ladybug reaches for her yoyo, Ouroboros lines up her shot and draws the bowstring back until her fingers brush her own cheek. She breathes in and lets her first arrow fly free on the exhale. 

The arrow snags Mirror Image’s pocket, tears the watch free, and pins it out of reach. It dangles from its chain; snared, but not broken.

Ouroboros curses under her breath.

All movement below stops for just a second like someone’s pressed pause, before they resume once more. Her distraction was enough, though - Ladybug calls for her Lucky Charm, and without Mirror Image right in front of her to stop it, the hand mirror she receives is red and black spotted, as it should be.

Mirror Image moves next, his focus on Ladybug. Ouroboros watches Chat’s face change into something fierce and determined and thinks of action where once, she’d been frozen instead.

_ Someone,  _ she remembers, _ isn’t making it out of this fight alive. _

So she touches a hand to the Miraculous around her wrist and does what she couldn’t, before: she slows the passing seconds down and  _ moves, _ throwing herself into the open sky. 

As Ouroboros falls, she lines up her next shot and thinks again of what makes up a person - of skin and bone and sinew, of expanding lungs and pounding blood, the impossible, miraculous measure of being  _ alive. _ She thinks of hard choices and sunbeam smiles, of a stubborn heart, strung together by wild hope and unwavering faith in her partner.

He calls for his Cataclysm right before he sees her. In slow motion, she can see the way his eyes fly wide, how his brow furrows beneath his mask. She looses her last arrow and lets the bow fall, then holds out her hand.

_ I’m sorry, Chat. _ He’ll not make it out of this battle unscarred, she realizes. None of them will. 

But he’ll  _ live, _ and she’ll be there to hold him up through the storm that will follow. 

Her arrow hits its target, this time. The pocket watch shatters, and Ouroboros drops in between the hero and Akuma. She catches Chat’s smoking hand in hers before it can make contact with the fading mirror, or Félix on his knees behind it. 

Cataclysm is a cold sort of burn, Ouroboros learns. She gasps at the ice in her fingers and toes as something in her chest catches fire.  She shuts her eyes against the pain and thinks again of where the light goes when the night inevitably comes to claim it. Then, she forces her eyes open and finds it, in glowing green eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! <3


	7. [will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off, thank you so much to everyone for the feedback on the last chapter!! And I'm so sorry this one is later than usual, but it's LONG and it's an important one - the kids finally get to cry and hug and TALK, so I wanted to spend as much time on it as I needed to to make sure it was good. Thank you thank you and I hope you enjoy!

As abruptly as it started, the battle ends, leaving pure chaos behind.

There’s ice in her veins. It’s crystallizing under her skin, freezing her to where she stands.

Ladybug drags air into her lungs and tries to find it within herself to take a step - the movement is slow, sluggish, and forced. It’s not until the distinct sound of an animal in pain reaches her ears that she can process the scene before her and  _ move.  _

Her partner is on his knees, hands flying over a person on the ground, but never once making contact. Chat’s nearly hyperventilating as the girl before him is consumed, so slowly by the black, unforgiving touch of his Cataclysm.

Ladybug blinks. Just beyond them is Félix, one hand raised to his temple. A purple butterfly struggles free from the speared face of his watch, several feet away.

She stumbles over to Chat and rubs a hand on his back, sliding it up his spine to squeeze his shoulder, the touch as grounding for her as she hopes it is for him. He glances up at her, something uncomprehending in his gaze before his attention snaps back to the girl before him.

Ladybug’s still not sure where she came from. One minute it was just her, Chat, and Mirror Image on the rooftop. Then, between seconds, it wasn’t.

Something  _ more  _ is happening here, she’s sure. She bends down, mind racing, grappling for an explanation.

When the stranger’s glazed blue eyes meet Ladybug’s, they sharpen. She reaches out with a surprisingly strong hand, grabs Ladybug by the shoulder, and jerks her in close. 

“Don’t wait,” she gasps. “Don’t throw it away.”

“What?” Ladybug asks, startled. The girl’s eyes flick to the hand on Ladybug’s shoulder, and she drops her own gaze to follow. There, dangling from her wrist is an unactivated Black Cat Miraculous and a shadowed version of the charm she’d last seen in her purse. That paralyzing ice is back, spreading through her blood until all she feels is cold. “You-”

The black rot of Chat’s magic spreads up her arm. An Akuma peels out of the charm as it crumbles to dust and, between blinks, the girl dying on the ground  _ changes.  _ Her hood falls away, and what’s still visible of her suit morphs from black to red. It’s unmistakably  _ her.  _

_ Ladybug. _

“Cast our cure,” she whispers, and closes her eyes.

Chat makes a horrible broken sound and rears back, falling on his splayed hands. His eyes dart rapidly between the two of them, something manic in his expression, and it spurs her into motion. Ladybug grabs for her yoyo and snaps it out to catch the two fluttering Akumas before reaching for her Lucky Charm. In the red and black spotted mirror, she meets her own eyes in the reflection for just a second before tossing it high and calling for her Miraculous cure.

“Don’t cry,  _ mon rêve,”  _ the other Ladybug whispers. Her voice is lost in a ragged sound as the black tide climbs her throat. Chat lets out a low whine and as the Miraculous magic flows over them, the Ladybug that lies prone on the rooftop vanishes.

Ladybug blinks and the world flashes white.

* * *

When she opens her eyes her vision swims, and she gasps for air. Chat kneels in front of her, calling her name. He has tear tracks on his cheeks and soot on his hands, but he’s  _ alive.  _

Her heart skips a beat before picking back up, double time. Something broken inside knits back together.

“Chat,” she gasps. Her fingers grope for his wrist and find the racing pulse there before she presses her palm flat over his beating heart. She breathes when he does, and it’s the lightest she’s ever felt.  _ “Chaton,” _ her trembling hand finally finds his cheek as tears stream down her own. “You’re okay.”

She lifts her gaze to his and realizes he’s  _ not, _ not entirely. His gaze darts frantically from her face to the spot where she’d lain as Ouroboros, and there’s something very fragile on the verge of breaking in his expression.

“Okay,” she says softly as she takes his chin in her hands and coaxes him to look at her, only at her. “Stay with me, Kitty.” 

He blinks rapidly, but nods. She nods back. Her earrings beep, nearly in perfect time with his ring. With a herculean effort, she looks away from Chat and turns to glance at Félix. “Are you injured?”

He looks pale but otherwise unscathed. “I - no, Ladybug.”

She rises to her feet and, reluctant to pull her hands from Chat, simply tugs him up with her and keeps her fingers twined with his. She crosses the rooftop to the fire escape. “You can get down from here,” she says to Félix, before scanning the crowd. “Alya,” she shouts when she finds the face she’s looking for, “will you make sure Félix gets back to the Agrestes?” 

The girl in question makes her way to the front of the crowd, her cell phone gripped tight in hand, and nods. “Of course.”

With that, Ladybug turns her full attention back to Chat. She lifts both of his hands in hers and holds them to her cheeks until he meets her eyes. “Come with me?”

Both Miraculous beep a second warning. Chat’s eyes widen as her meaning lands, but he nods, his hands trembling against her skin.

Ladybug offers a weary smile before wrapping an arm around his waist, pulling him in close, and swinging them both away.

* * *

When her feet touch down onto the rooftop of Master Fu’s old apartment, Ladybug lets go of Chat only long enough to drop her arm from his waist and take his hand instead. She slides her fingers into the gaps between his and presses their palms together, leading him down the fire escape and into the vacant rooms through the window. He follows along in her silent footsteps, as pliant as a newborn kitten.

The dusty apartment has been undisturbed for at least a year and empty even longer. Dust clothes drape over the few pieces of furniture that were left behind when their owner fled. Cobwebs gather in the corners. Ladybug wrinkles her nose. All things considered, it’s been forgotten, and forgotten places make the best spots to hide.

Her earrings beep a loud warning and she turns to face Chat Noir, her mouth going dry. There are so many things she has to tell him, and she can’t imagine where to start.

He isn’t looking at her. Instead, his gaze roams the dim room, perhaps noting the same things she has or nothing at all. Only one way to find out.

“Hey,” she says, barely more than a whisper. Slowly, he tilts his head in her direction, before his gaze slowly follows. He meets her eyes, searches hers, and then his stoic expression crumbles.

“Oh, Kitty, no,” Ladybug hurries to soothe. Her hands find his shoulders and tug him into a tight hug. She feels his gasp more than she hears it when their chests bump together, and then he’s clinging - his hands grip her hips with the slightest bite of claws before sliding around to her back to clutch her in an embrace that might have crushed bones, were it not for her suit.

“I hurt you,” he chokes on the words, his body trembling in her arms. A sob rips through him and tears out of his throat in a tattered breath. “I  _ killed  _ you, my lady, how -”

“No, you-” she stops and holds him tighter. She’d known, hadn’t she? She knew what stopping his Cataclysm would do to both of them, and she’d been the one to make him do it. Lying about it would do nothing to benefit either of them now. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’m okay.” She presses her cheek to his, murmuring beside his ear. “I’m right here. I’ll explain everything, but I need you to breathe with me first, okay?”

Chat tucks his face into her neck. She can feel the dampness on his cheeks against her skin and the way his heart pounds in time with hers, frantic but alive.

_ Alive, alive, alive. _

The relief brings with it the release of every bitter, horrible thing they’ve been through, the stress of two terrible days forced into one. It floods through her and knocks her to her knees, and he goes down with her. She tangles her fingers in his hair and presses her face into his collarbone until it hurts, until she can chase away the burnt scent of ashes and soot with his sunshine and leather, until all she can smell is something like home. 

“It’s okay,  _ mon chaton, _ everything will be okay,” she whispers the promise into his skin and feels the slightest bit of tension slide away.

He shakes his head against hers but doesn’t draw back. “We’re about to-”

The final, wild beeping in her ear drowns out the rest of his warning. “I know,” Ladybug says softly, pulling away just enough to see his face. She plants one of her hands flat against his chest, wanting to hold on to the feeling of his heartbeats. With her other, she wraps her fingers around his wrist and guides his hand to where he can count hers. “We’re okay.” She lets her forehead come to rest against his. “I’m right here, and so are you. Breathe with me, Chat.”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath, and she does the same.

Her transformation wears off in a bright pink flash that mingles with the green light of his. It illuminates the room briefly before fading away. There’s soft cotton under her touch instead of worn leather and his racing heart is even more apparent, pounding into her bare hand as though it’d like to break free and make a home there.

She opens her eyes and sees Tikki barrel into a surprised Plagg with a squeak before the kwamis disappear into the shadows. She looks at Chat’s unmasked face to find his eyes screwed shut. Her lips curve into a soft smile and she whispers, “You can open your eyes, Adrien.”

Either the sound of his name or the invitation startles him into obeying. She sees wide green eyes before he leans back, only far enough to see her. 

“Marinette,” he breathes, and finally, he breaks into a small smile.

The sight of it takes a massive weight off her shoulders. She holds fast to his hand like a lifeline for fear she might float away. “You don’t seem too surprised.”

His gaze darts over her face with something endlessly soft in his expression that warms her from the inside out. “I’m not. Of course it’s you,” he says, the way one might announce the rising sun - a sure, indisputable thing. He lifts his free hand to her face and traces her cheek with his thumb, following the curve of where her mask usually rests. “My Everyday Ladybug.”

The admission steals her breath and her face flushes with heat. Just as quickly as it’d come, his smile fades. “I  _ cataclysmed  _ you,” he murmurs. 

He draws his hand back, but Marinette reaches out to catch it. “No, listen,” she starts. “You did, and you didn’t. But - it was my fault?”

He blinks and tilts his head. “You’re not making much sense, my lady.”

Tikki phases through Marinette’s purse with a pink macaroon in hand. She settles onto Marinette’s shoulder, suggesting, “Start at the beginning.”

“If only I knew what that was,” Marinette says, watching as Adrien pulls a piece of cheese out of his shirt pocket and automatically offers it into Plagg’s waiting paws. The sight would make her laugh, were it not for the concerned furrow of his brow and the weight of his unwavering attention. She swallows her nerves and straightens her spine. “Okay. So, you remember Timebreaker, right?”

“Yeah. There were two Ladybugs,” Adrien says immediately.

Marinette’s mouth twitches up into a smirk. “That  _ is  _ what you’d remember best, isn’t it, minou?” 

The small smile he offers is all Chat Noir, unabashed and mischievous. Reconciling her partner with Adrien is somehow as implausible as it is simple - a paradox she can only hope will grow easier with time. She continues on. “Well, this story is a little like that one. I’ve lived today twice, and the first time-” her fingers tighten reflexively around his, and he squeezes back. “The first time we fought Mirror Image, it went horribly wrong.”

Adrien frowns. “Did he hurt you? Did he get your Miraculous?” he fires off questions concerned only for her, and something bitter rises in Marinette’s throat.

“No, Adrien, he killed _ you,” _ Marinette murmurs, watching as the tight line of his shoulders relaxed. She feels the perplexing urge to punch him for it. “He reflected your Cataclysm and you died right in front of me.”

“Oh,” he says, dropping his gaze to their tangled fingers. “Well, I mean. I’ve died before. You always bring me back though, right?”

She can hear what he _means_ but doesn’t put words to.  _ Why does it matter now? _

Marinette lets out a slow breath, blinking back the burning tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t this time. My Lucky Charm didn’t work and you were gone.” He opens his mouth, but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t want to give him a chance to chime in with a protest that might break her heart. “So I went home, got the Snake Miraculous, and went back in time.”

He raises his eyebrows. “How-” he blinks, and she sees it when the horrifying revelation hits him. “You were akumatized,” he whispers. “On the roof, that was the akumatized Ladybug.” Adrien looks up with anguish in his eyes. “You got akumatized because of  _ me?”  _

She wants to shake him. “Adrien,” Marinette starts, her heart aching. “The only reason I had time to come up with a plan and run home instead of being akumatized immediately is that Hawkmoth was too distracted to try it right away. You’re my partner, _ Chaton, mon coeur, _ of  _ course  _ losing you was enough to akumatize me.” 

He looks devastated by the prospect. “But you...you shouldn’t have-”

“I let him,” Marinette says fiercely. “I knew what I was doing. I knew an Akuma would make the Miraculous limitless, I knew I could restart the day, and don’t you dare say I shouldn’t have done  _ everything  _ I could to save you, because I refuse to hear it.” 

Adrien snaps his mouth shut, meeting her glare for a moment before glancing away, his free hand rising to the back of his neck. In the silence that follows, Tikki nudges Marinette’s cheek. “Tell him everything, Marinette. There’s no point in keeping secrets now.”

She hesitates, but slowly meets Adrien’s eye when he looks back up. “It gets worse. I know who Hawkmoth is.”

“Why would that be worse?” he perks up for just a moment before he picks up on the heaviness of her words, the solemnity of her expression. He deflates, then takes a deep breath. “Tell me.”

She bites down on her lower lip. “Not long after the battle, I was still with you. He...Hawkmoth came. He said he’d suspected Chat Noir might be his son before -” at that, Plagg gasps. Adrien goes rigid and shuts his eyes. Marinette holds tight to his hand. “But Adrien disappearing the same night that Chat died seemed to confirm it for him.”

For several minutes, Adrien sits perfectly still and stays silent but for the whistle of his ragged breathing, in and out of his nose. Then, he lets go of her hand, stands up, and crosses to the window. His fingers curl into fists. He pounds them into the window sill with one loud thud, before tapping his knuckles to the glass, careful and controlled once more, even while turmoil crackles through him like a livewire. When he turns around, he doesn’t look at her. “I suppose you’ll be wanting my ring back, then.”

Plagg drifts close to him, his ears pressed flat to his head. “Adrien?”

Adrien doesn’t look at him, either. He keeps his gaze resolute on the wall somewhere over her head.

Marinette blinks once, twice. When she finds her voice, it’s strained. “Excuse me?”

His face is blank, but she can see the way his fists tremble. She wonders if he’s ever once been able to let go, or if everything he keeps locked inside is just going to keep rising until it hits a boiling point. “My Miraculous. You’ll want a new Chat Noir, one who’s not the son of a supervillain, of a  _ terrorist.” _ His voice starts to shake. “One who couldn’t possibly have missed what goes on inside his own house, and-”

Marinette crosses the room and grabs onto his shoulders. He flinches, his expression twisting. “Chat,” she begs, _ “Stop.” _

“He hurt you!” Finally, his mask breaks, and a tear streaks down his cheek, followed by another, then a stream. “Over and over. He’s hurt so many people.” He shakes his head. “He’s a monster, and  _ god, _ did he even care when I  _ died?” _ Adrien’s voice cracks and Marinette pulls him in. One hand sifts through his hair and pulls his head down so he can hide his face in her neck, and the other fists in the back of his shirt.

“None of this is your fault,” she tells him, her voice thick with tears of her own. “Not one thing. You are  _ my  _ Chat Noir, no one else could take your place. We’re going to get you out of that house, and we’re going to figure this out together, okay? You and me.”

He crumbles into her, boneless in her arms, and she holds him steady through the storm. Tikki nestles into her hair while Plagg curls into Adrien’s collarbone.

When the rain passes and Adrien calms down to the soft rumble of Plagg’s purring and the murmur of Marinette’s soothing, he slumps back against the wall and sinks to the floor, bringing Marinette down with him. He sighs, his eyes red-rimmed. “Tell me the rest?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

She nods and tucks herself under his arm, lifting her hand to rest over his heart. “Okay. I restarted the day. I already had a clue you might be Chat, so I followed you -” at this, Adrien huffs a short laugh. “What?”

He shakes his head before leaning it on top of hers. “All day, I had the weirdest feeling I was being watched, but I never did see you, that’s all. Go on.”

Adrien stays silent through Marinette’s retelling, nodding along as she goes through the day. He stiffens when she tells him about Bunnyx and her ominous warning, but still, he doesn’t interrupt again. When Marinette reaches the battle, the parts he remembers, she glances up to find him frowning, his blond brows furrowed. 

“So I knew I had to be the one to catch your Cataclysm, or else it could have rebounded again, or you could’ve hurt Félix, and well, you were there for the rest. So you didn’t kill anyone, not really. I...I knew that once the other me got a  _ real  _ Lucky Charm, this time everything would be fixed,” she says, her own mouth curving down when his expression remains one of displeasure. Marinette folds her hands, tangling and untangling her fingers as nerves turn her stomach into knots. “So...that’s it.”

Adrien’s quiet for several moments, his severe demeanor unabating. When she squirms against his side, he finally says, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You could try thank you,” Marinette says, aiming for lightness as she stretches her aching legs out in front of her.

He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t…” he trails off and swipes a hand through his hair in one frustrated stroke before trying again. “The last thing I want is for you to risk your life for me - to  _ die  _ for me. Marinette, you can’t...you just can’t do that, okay?” 

Her stomach drops and her throat starts to burn. She pulls away from Adrien and fixes him with a glare that has him shifting in place. “I did what I had to do, and saying I can’t is a little ridiculous coming from you, don’t you think? You throw yourself in danger for me all the time for much less!”

“That’s different,” he says, his frown settling into a stubbornness she’s rarely seen on Chat and never on Adrien. He crosses his arms and lifts his chin. “Ladybug is more important.”

“That’s bullshit,” she cuts in, startling him. “You know it is. Sure, I’m the one who purifies the akumas and repairs the damage, so I have to make it to the end of the fight. But Chat, you take hits for me constantly, sometimes when it’s not necessary at all. You’re  _ reckless.” _

“So what? You can bring me back,” he insists.

But she hadn’t, not this time - she’d only fixed a failure with an extra Miraculous and a lot of Ladybug luck. That was the point, wasn’t it? Her partner believed her to be infallible and himself expendable; and while from a purely tactical standpoint, he might be  _ technically  _ correct, the thought made her sick. 

She’s always told herself that a great superhero only listened to her head, but it was messier, now; the heart that had shattered upon watching him turn to dust had only grown louder and louder. “You act like your life is just something to throw away.”

The minuscule shrug he offers is enough to have her eyes stinging. “LB, you know Paris doesn’t need me as much as they need you. It’s different. You just can’t die for me,” he says again, rising to his feet and brushing dust off his knees.

The cold logic in his voice, the finality, has Marinette pushing to her feet, suddenly more furious with him than she’s ever been. In seconds, she’s back in his space, nearly nose to nose with him. “Don’t you get it?  _ I _ need  _ you. _ There is no Ladybug without you!”

He shifts his gaze away from hers. “Don’t say that,” he argues, losing some of his steam. “You would be okay, my lady, you-”

“I wouldn’t be,” she snaps. She may be a hero, but if she’s learned anything at all from the past twenty-four hours, it’s that she’s only human. “I’ve lived it, and I was not okay! I would do exactly what I did today all over again if it meant saving you.”

Adrien lets out a breath that could have been a laugh, if it had any humor to it and none of the desperation.  _ “Why?”  _

“Because I love you!”

Marinette’s confession, loud and sudden as a thunderclap, seems to startle them both. It echoes through the empty room and leaves only silence to rain down upon them in its wake.

Adrien’s lips part as his mouth drops open, a disbelieving sort of fragility wiping away any remaining traces of the will to fight. “You-” he blinks. Something like hope tugs up the corner of his mouth, the beginnings of an incredulous smile. “You love me?”

She softens at his smile even as part of her still wants to cry. She lifts a hand to his cheek and he draws in a sharp breath, his eyes going wider still. “I didn’t really want to _yell_ it at you, but yeah. I’ve wanted to tell you for ages. It’s what I’ve been so scared of, but when I lost you...I couldn’t just do nothing.” Her eyes tighten and her smile slips. “I would have given anything to have told you every single day, Kitty.” 

Adrien takes both of her hands in his and brings them to his face until he can press a kiss to each of her knuckles, his gaze on hers warm enough to make her melt. “This must be a dream,” he murmurs, sounding dazed.

Marinette’s knees threaten to give out, unwilling to hold her up much longer. Breathlessly, she asks, “If it were, what would happen next?” 

His eyes drop so quickly to her mouth she might have missed it, if she weren’t hanging on his every move. His chest hitches before his stare snaps back to hers, drowning her in green. He turns her hand over in his and brings her palm back to his mouth, then kisses the inside of her wrist. His throat works as he swallows, then, with his lips moving ever so slightly against the sensitive skin there, he says, “Something like this.” He kisses her wrist again before continuing, his voice low, “What do you dream of, my lady?”

She’s forgotten what oxygen is for, to say nothing of remembering what happens once she closes her eyes for the night. She’s lived through a nightmare, but this - this feels like sweet relief upon waking; of Chat Noir’s tender fingers brushing hair off her cheek, of sleepy smiles and muted sunlight in their eyes. Now, Marinette feels like her every nerve is wide awake.

Adrien waits, endlessly patient, and finally, she puts words to the truth. “You, Adrien.  _ You.” _

His answering smile is radiant. His hands come up to cradle her cheeks and she meets him halfway in a kiss impossibly soft. Her fingers find their way into his hair and a small, helpless noise catches in his throat. Marinette sighs, thinking only of the dawn after night breaks, of the sun bursting through the clouds with daylight so strong not even time can put it out for long.

Adrien’s ragged breath plays across her cheek as he rests his forehead against hers. Marinette’s about to dive back in for more of him when a loud, dramatic sigh hits her ear. 

“Are you not  _ done  _ yet?” Plagg demands. Marinette feels the slight weight of him on the crown of her head, his little paws in her hair.

“Plagg!” Tikki scolds him, and the sound of Adrien’s laugh sinks into Marinette’s bones and floods her with peace.

Adrien rubs his cheek against hers, so much like a cat that her mouth quirks up in an unstoppable grin. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“No, don’t,” Marinette coos, scooping the kwami into her hand and rubbing his ears with her finger while Adrien looks on with a pout. “We lost him too, you know.”

At that, Adrien pulls her back into a hug, squishing Plagg in between them while Tikki settles onto Adrien’s shoulder. He tucks his face into Marinette’s hair and asks, “What are we going to do now?”

For a moment, Marinette says nothing. Outside, the night waits - there’s a city on the verge of sleep that trusts their heroes to keep them safe, and a villain looming larger than ever as the shadows close in. She shuts her eyes, listens to the sound of them both still breathing, and leans into Adrien. “I’m not sure,” she says, “but we’ll figure something out together.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think because I have agonized over this chapter for DAYS <3


	8. [where the spirit meets the bones]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so we've made it to the end, with a short but sweet epilogue. I managed to fit in some ladrien after all. <3 Thank you guys so much for your support and love throughout this story, I appreciate it endlessly and I hope you enjoy this last bit!

_ Experiencing loss is a part of life, but it doesn’t have to define it. _

_ For a year now, I’ve wondered if that’s not entirely true. I’ve lost plenty of things: harmony, hope, and patience among them, and I’ve felt the burden of those losses grow heavier and heavier. It wasn’t until I really and truly lost my heart that I realized Master Fu was right, about this at least - there’s not one loss in particular that can define us as long as we keep moving, as long as we look for ways to grow from it. _

_ I lost what I could not stand to lose, but I found a way to take a step forward and keep going. I found the light in the dark and gained more than I ever imagined I could. _

_ We do not have to be defined by the things that can break us. _

* * *

At a quarter to midnight, Ladybug drops onto the rooftop with the best, unobstructed view of the Agreste Mansion. Despite the nervous energy licking up and down her spine and an overwhelming urge to kick down the front door, she does as discussed, and waits.

Most of the windows are dark with the late hour, save two. A fluorescent light burns through the night on the lower floor, and the warm glow of a lamp casts shadows from one of the highest windows.

Ladybug fidgets in place and checks her yoyo phone.

No messages, no missed calls.

She blows her hair out of her face with a frustrated huff, though she’s not surprised - they’d decided Adrien should return home as expected following the Akuma attack to not arouse suspicion, but still, she feels like a spring coiled tight for every moment her partner remains stuck under the same roof as Hawkmoth on his own.

She waits. She rolls her yoyo along the length of the roof before snapping it back to her palm. She successfully tangles the string into something that bears a passing resemblance to the Eiffel Tower. She lets her mind drift to all the ways their lives could improve once Adrien is free.

Finally, the light coming from Adrien’s bedroom flashes on and off twice before going out. Ladybug grins, casts one last glance up and down the street below, and swings over. She perches on the sill of his open window. “Ready for a jailbreak?”

He doesn’t answer right away. By the harsh light of his computer screen, she can see him staring, his face flushed. She blinks. “Everything okay?”

His mouth snaps shut. “I - yeah. Yes. You’re just...in my room. It’s a little distracting, sorry.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. Shyness battles smug, and the latter wins. Ladybug offers him a slow, sly grin and purrs, “Oh? Is this something of a dream of yours, kitty cat?”

If possible, his blush deepens further. “What would you do if I said it was?”

She slides down from the window and Adrien’s hands rise to her waist automatically to steady her landing. She drops her hands onto his chest and kisses him before her feet touch the ground. His grip on her hips tightens, failing to find any give in the skin-tight fabric of her super suit.

The soft noise he makes leaves her head spinning and the giddy feeling that bubbles up inside her is only tempered by the knowledge that they aren’t safe here, by the urgency to  _ get out, go, now _ . She breaks away, lets go of a shuddering exhale and taps her finger to his nose. Breathlessly, she says, “We should go.”

Adrien doesn’t release her. His mouth chases hers, dropping a brief kiss onto her lips before resting his forehead on hers. “Are you sure? I still think I could spy on him, try to find  _ something…” _

This time, she pulls away enough to fix him with a stern glare. “No, Chat. We talked about this. It won’t take much for him to figure out who you are and we have to make sure that you’ll be safe before we make any moves against him.”

“Listen to Pigtails,” Plagg chimes in from the collar of Adrien’s shirt and makes her jump. “Although,” he whines, “what will I do without my camembert?”

Adrien rolls his eyes as Plagg casts a mournful look in the direction of the mini-fridge. “Relax. I’m bringing enough to last you the week, at least.” He lets his hands fall away from her to grab the backpack resting beneath the window. He pulls it onto his shoulders and looks around the room with nothing but visible relief.

Ladybug feels an answering pang in her chest.  _ What must it be like to only be glad to run away from your home?  _ She reaches out and tangles her fingers between his. “Do you have everything?” 

Adrien offers her a soft smile. “Everything that matters.”

Plagg dives into his bag and Ladybug wraps an arm around his waist. “Hold on, then,” she whispers. Adrien’s arms wrap around her neck and she tosses her yoyo out the window and takes flight.

They leave the cold, imposing mansion behind without so much as a backward glance.

* * *

_ Life doesn’t always turn out the way we’ve hoped. We’ve lost access to our allies and Hawkmoth is Adrien’s father, but at the end of the day, we’ll be okay. He’s safe for now, and when we’re ready - when  _ he’s _ ready - to end this war, we’ll do it together. It’s us against the world, as it’s always been. _

_ There’s something to be said for having something you can always count on. _

_ The real gift is life itself. As long as we’re both breathing we’ll make it out of the dark, I know it. _

The buzzing of her phone on the desk drags Marinette’s attention from her diary. She grabs it quickly and quietly, frowning at the unknown number.

_ Is Adrien with you? _

She looks up from her phone and over at the chaise, where her partner sleeps. His halo of blond hair is a mess, as Chat-like as she’s ever seen him without the mask. His feet hang off the edge and his hand is dangling, stretched towards hers after he’d fallen asleep holding on. The love that swells in her chest is enough to break her and heal her, all at once. She smiles, leans over to hitch the blanket a little higher over his shoulders and press a soft kiss to his cheek, then turns back to her desk. 

_ No, _ Marinette types.  _ I haven’t seen him at all. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story originated as a sort of love letter to Adrien/Chat - we see him die/disappear so often in the show, but it's glossed over and we rarely see the impact. I wanted to explore showing his real (if temporary) loss and really feel that loss, in a way we don't really see in canon. It was also my way of working through some grief of my own, and I hope this story offers some catharsis for you guys in the way it has for me. 
> 
> Much love and endless thanks, you guys are amazing.


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